B a ti ists meet ith . . o ials during . . isit

A group of LGBTQ and intersex activists from Uganda traveled to D.C. last week.

Sexual Minorities Uganda Executive Director Frank Mugisha, GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders Senior Manager of Organizational Culture and Community Partnerships Quin Mbabazi and Chapter Four Uganda Executive Director Nicholas Opiyo on Monday spoke about the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in D.C. Maria Burnett, senior associate of CSIS’ Africa Program, moderated the panel discussion in which Jessica Stern, the special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights rights, also participated.

Mugisha, Mbabazi, Opiyo and Jacqueline Kasha Nabagesara while in D.C. met o cials from the White House, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development and representatives from the Council for Global Equality. The activists also briefed the Congressional Equality Caucus.

Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine, a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service who is the first openly transgender person confirmed by the U.S. Senate, on Thursday tweeted a picture of her with Mugisha.

“It was such an honor to meet (Frank Mugisha.) His courage gives me strength, but no one should have to be brave just to be their authentic self,” tweeted Levine. “Progress is not real unless it means progress for all.”

The activists came to D.C. less than a month after Ugandan MPs passed the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

Opiyo notes the measure would impose a “mandatory” death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” and “anybody who is convicted of being engaged in same-sex relations” would face life in prison.

The bill would also punish the “promotion, recruitment and funding” of LGBT -specific activities in Uganda with up to 10 years in prison. Any “person who ‘holds out as a lesbian, gay, transgender, a queer or any other sexual or gender identity that is contrary to the binary categories of male and female’” would also face up to 10 years in prison. Opiyo also noted the measure’s provision that would re uire Ugandans to report LGBT -specific activities to authorities would create “a moral police force.”

Uganda is among the dozens of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations are criminalized.

President Yoweri Museveni in 2014 signed that year’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, which imposed a life sentence upon anyone found guilty of repeated same-sex sexual acts. The law was known as the “Kill the Gays” bill because it previously contained a death penalty provision.

The U.S. subsequently cut aid to Uganda and imposed a travel ban against o cials who carried out human rights abuses. Uganda’s Constitutional Court later struck down the 2014 Anti-Homosexuality Act on a technicality.

Museveni has said he supports the current bill for which MPs with close ties to anti-LGBTQ American evangelical groups have championed.

“Anti-gay groups and anti-gender groups (are) radicalizing the Ugandan society against the LGBTQ community,” said Mugisha during the CSIS panel. “We’re seeing a lot of hatred. We’re seeing a lot of fear of LGBTQ persons.”

Mugisha noted there has been an increase in violence against LGBTQ and intersex Ugandans over the last year.

Uganda’s National Bureau for Non-Government Organizations last August forced Sexual Minorities Uganda to shut down.

“We’re seeing a very systematic, targeted, group that is targeting the LGBTQ community and we’ve seen that Ugandans have sort of been prepared for this legislation,” said Mugisha.

Stern during the CSIS panel reiterated the Biden-Harris administration’s criticisms of the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

“The U.S. has significant concerns about the Anti-Homosexuality Act that the Parliament of Uganda passed on March 21,” said Stern. “If the Anti-Homosexuality Act is signed into law and enacted, it would threaten the human rights of Ugandan citizens, jeopardize progress in the fight against HIV AIDS, deter tourism and investment in Uganda and damage Uganda’s international reputation.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during her March 22 press briefing reiterated many of the same points that Stern did. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby that day also noted the U.S. provides substantial aid to Uganda through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and other programs.

“If this bill passes as it is now, the work that PEPFAR currently funds would be criminalized,” said Burnett. “We’re talking about people who are implementing U.S.-funded programs who could not do their jobs without potentially running afoul of the law and losing their liberty.”

Stern said the U.S. “continues to raise issues around the Anti-Homosexuality Act with the government of Uganda at all levels” and is “coordinating with diplomatic partners, with the private sector and with human rights organizations directly.” Stern also noted she and her colleagues are in “daily communication” with Mugisha and the other activists who were on the CSIS panel.

“We’re in constant contact with the community because they know how severe this issue is, how high the stakes are, how to push, what messages to use and what consequences the threat of the bill is already having on the community,” said Stern. “LGBTQI human rights defenders and human rights defenders of all stripes in Uganda are some of our greatest partners in this work. We are working with partners to engage at the multilateral level to address this issue.”

Stern also warned the U.S. would reconsider foreign assistance to Uganda if Museveni signs the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

MICHAEL K. LAVERS

India Supreme Court begins to consider marriage equality

The Indian Supreme Court on Tuesday began to hear arguments on whether to extend marriage rights to samesex couples.

The Supreme Court in 2018 struck down the country’s colonial-era law that criminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations.

Ankush Kumar, a Washington Blade contributor in India, reported Mukul Rohatgi, an LGBTQ and intersex ac- tivist, said the “LGBTQ community possess (the) same human rights as (a) heterosexual person.”

“So they have right to marry and can not be left alone,” said Rohatgi. “So we request this court to grant us relief.”

The Blade previously reported the government opposes legal recognition of same-sex marriage and has told the highest court that same-sex couples living together as partners and having a sexual relationship with the same sex individual is not comparable with Indian family unit — a husband, a wife and a child born out of the union. The government also told the Supreme Court that samesex marriage is not compatible with the Indian ethos and morality.

Kumar reported the Supreme Court said the “notion of a biological man or woman is not absolute.”

MICHAEL K. LAVERS

Hungarian parliament passes ‘snitch on your gay neighbor’ law

The National Assembly of Hungary last week approved legislation that included a provision for citizens to anonymously report on same-sex couples who are raising children.

The wording of the provision specifies that Hungarians may report those who contest the “constitutionally recognized role of marriage and the family” and those who contest children’s rights “to an identity appropriate to their sex at birth.” The latter wording specifically aimed at acknowledging transgender youth.

The country’s constitution states that the institution of marriage is “between one man and one woman,” and notes that “the mother is a woman, the father a man.”

This law’s passage comes after the country’s Constitutional Court issued a ruling in February that will continue to block new applications from trans people for legal gender recognition. The judgment effectively creates two categories of trans people in Hungary: Those who applied early enough to pursue gender recognition and those who did not.

Earlier this month according to a spokesperson for the German government, Germany and France joined with other EU member states in the European Commission lawsuit over a Hungarian law which discriminates against people on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity.

The 14 EU member states that have joined the lawsuit’s proceedings are Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Malta, Austria, Sweden, Slovenia, Finland and now France and Germany.

Nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has publicly proclaimed he is a “defender of traditional family Catholic values.” Orban has been criticized by international human rights groups as discriminating against LGBTQ people with this law which European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called a “disgrace.”

On June 15, 2021, the Hungarian Law purportedly aiming at taking stricter action against pedophile offenders and amending certain laws to protect children was adopted. Some of the new provisions target and limit the access of minors to content and advertisements that “promotes or portrays” the so-called “divergence from self-identity corresponding to sex at birth, sex change or homosexuality.”

BRODY LEVESQUE

On April 7, the two youngest Black state representatives serving in the Tennessee Legislature, Justin Jones, 27, and Justin Pearson, 28, were expelled from the body. Their “crime”? Breaking a house rule disrupting regular proceedings to stage a protest with a third colleague Gloria Johnson – who was spared expulsion against gun violence.

This move was a blatant attempt to silence their voices and intimidate others from speaking out. Let alone an unprecedented attack that exceeded the mark for any disciplinary action in modern times. It spoke volumes for the inaction of the GOP-controlled legislature to do anything about gun violence that the only step they could take was to remove the voices of those who dared to point out that same inaction.

This follows protests by multitudes of people at the legislature since the recent school shooting in Nashville by a shooter who killed three children, a teacher, and two staff at Covenant School. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 123 shootings that took place across the country – more than the days that have passed so far in the year alone.

The U.S. is the only industrialized country with this problem. The proliferation of guns, lack of background checks, and the latest proposals passed by Republicans would no longer require a permit. These policies risk leading to the deaths of more innocent people and turning our country into the Wild West.

There is no doubt that public safety is essential. Last year, the Los Angeles Police Department recorded 2,780 robberies involving a gun. That is an increase of nearly 400 from 2021. I was a victim of a mugging at gunpoint last year. I was fortunately unharmed but my biggest shock was that it was young teenagers who should have been in school.

Even as a veteran who served in Iraq, I never had anyone try to use their weapon on me, so one can imagine the irony of having someone using one on me on the very block where I live in Hollywood. And as we look across the nation and see mass shooting after mass shooting of innocent, unarmed people being killed just for showing up at work or school or during simple tra c stops enough is enough. We have the right to be safe.

That means reimagining public safety to get at the roots of what contributes to crime (this includes joblessness), banning assault weapons, including expanded background checks, and ensuring we hold those who provide public safety accountable.

Since the ban on assault weapons was lifted, we have seen an exponential increase in mass shootings with those weapons. We need to reinstate it immediately. We also need to decrease the footprint of law enforcement for routine tra c stops and mental health emergencies. Those encounters that lead to a loss of life need to be investigated by a third party and, as necessary, held accountable.

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CHRISTOPHER JACKSON, 562-826-6602

Ending gun violence. That is what Justin Jones and Justin Pearson and so many advocates nationwide were fighting for. Speaking with prophetic fire, these bold leaders represent a new generation that will not accept business as usual.

The anti-democratic designs of the GOP-controlled Tennessee legislature have back-fired. Mr. Jones and Pearson are now national leaders with a bigger platform to advocate for a new vision for America that the new generation will lead us from the neighborhoods in which we live to the Halls of Congress.

To paraphrase President John F. Kennedy, “ Let the word go forth from this time and place to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans” And the new generation, despite whatever those on the wrong side of history and against democracy will not be silenced.

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Peter Rosenstein

is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.