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Australia finally condemns Uganda

By on December 21, 2009

Australia has joined the chorus of nations raising concerns with Uganda’s Government over its proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
The bill punishes any expression of same-sex intimacy with life imprisonment, while HIV-positive GLBT people having sex will be eligible for the death penalty. Condom use is not a mitigating factor.
A Foreign Affairs department spokeswoman confirmed the Head of Mission at Australia’s High Commission in neighbouring Kenya had made personal representations to the Ugandan Government over the bill.
The Head of Mission also wrote to the Speaker of Uganda’s Parliament, outlining the Australian Government’s concerns.
Formal protests against the bill were lodged with the Ugandan Government by the European Union, Norway and the United States.
Sweden has gone further, threatening to stop all aid to the country if the bill is passed.
Major religious figures have also come out against the bill, with Archbishop of Canterbury  Rowan Williams, and head of the Global Anglican Communion, stating his opposition.
Pastor Rick Warren, of the American evangelical Saddleback Church, has belatedly come out against the proposed law, calling it a “terrible bill”.
The campaign against homosexuals in Uganda has received the blessing of both the Ugandan Anglican Church and Ugandan evangelical leaders previously mentored by Warren.
The Exodus International ex-gay ministry, which sent a speaker to an anti-gay convention in Uganda this year, has written to Uganda’s president opposing the bill.
Following the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago last month it was expected that Uganda would drop the bill’s death penalty component.
However, Uganda’s Minister of Ethics, James Buturo said there will be no compromise, telling The Guardian, “If [countries] choose to withdraw their aid they are free [to]… because Ugandans do not want to engage in anal sex. We do not care.”

About Andrew M Potts

3 Comments

  1. Rude Rudd

    December 21, 2009 at 10:15 pm


    Any aid cuts to Uganda over the bill will not deter MPs from passing the bill into law.
    It is revealing that support to Uganda literally translated means abiding with the givers regardless of what Ugandans themselves think. I would say we rather do without Australia’s Aid and preserve Uganda’s longest standing morals.
    The people of Uganda existed and survived before Australia came in to give support and will continue to survive with or without handouts from abroad.
    We would rather live in grass huts with our morality than in skyscrapers among homosexuals.
    Our morals are not on sell

  2. Peter Brown

    December 22, 2009 at 12:48 pm


    What has Archbiship Jensen said on the issue? After all, he went to Africa several times stirring up gay hatred and is mates with the Anglican Archbishop of Uganda who is supporting the bill. He should not be allowed to get off scotfree.

  3. dill spencer

    January 12, 2010 at 7:52 pm


    Yes just allow aid to be cut to ur country and execute homosexuals. sounds like great morals to me . . . . . seems like the dying ppl in uganda will be going to “hell” before evryone else.

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