KAMPALA, UGANDA: The Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, Rt. Rev Dr Stephen Kaziimba Mugalu has hailed President Museveni for standing firm and signing into law the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023 amid pressure from Western countries.
The Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among yesterday (Monday) announced that the President had finally assented to the controversial bill to make it a legislation and called for its implementation from the concerned authorities.
Speaking of the new development, the Church of Uganda in a statement released on Monday evening described the move as diligent work also hailing parliament for a similar job.
“We are grateful the current act affirms the merits of the existing provisions in the current penal code. We are also grateful that the act builds on existing laws by offering greater protection of children through strong anti-grooming measures, strong restrictions on promotion, and protection of children by not allowing those convicted under the act to be employed in organizations that work directly with children. We also appreciate that the act protects people from false allegations,” Dr Kaziimba, the Archbishop of the CoU said.
“The LGBTQ-affirming countries have shown us the negative consequences. We thank the president for not surrendering to their threats and for protecting Uganda from their paths of self-destruction,” Kazimba said as he applauded the president for not succumbing to pressure from the West not to sign the bill into law.
He however said the Church of Uganda doesn’t support the death penalty as prescribed in the new law for those convicted of aggravated defilement and aggravated homosexuality and instead advised that the punishment should be life imprisonment.
“Homosexuality is currently a challenge in Uganda because it is being forced on us by outside, foreign actors against our will, against our culture, and against our religious beliefs. They disguise themselves as “human rights activists,” but are corrupting real human rights by adding LGBTQ to their agenda.”
“There have always been a few people in our communities who were known as homosexuals and the communities knew how to relate with them. The fact that very few of our local languages even have a word for homosexuality shows how it is not a part of our cultures and our communities. This is one of the areas where our culture is aligned with the Bible, which never speaks positively about homosexual relationships,“ he added.
The United States President Joe Biden yesterday called for the immediate repeal of the law, slamming it as “a tragic violation of universal human rights” and threatening to cut aid and investment to the East African country.
Same-sex relations were already illegal in Uganda, as they are in more than 30 African countries, but the new law goes much further in targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people.
The law imposes capital punishment for some behaviour including having gay sex when HIV positive and stipulates a 20-year sentence for “promoting” homosexuality.
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