Uganda is sanctioning gay genocide: Jail time and Death for being Gay!

Consensual homosexual acts between adults are still illegal in as many as 70 countries. Most countries have moved to a liberalisation of those unjust and repressive laws. In Uganda, however, the Hon David Bahati has sponsored an anti-homosexuality bill far more draconian than the already existing code. It begins with principles and threats: the value of traditional family values, the threat of homosexual infection.

The logic of the bill is this: "This legislation further recognizes the fact that same sex attraction is not an innate and immutable characteristic." But only if sexual orientation is voluntary can a person be held accountable for his or her choice. Science has concluded that sexual orientation is a core personality trait, not a choice. You no more choose to be gay or bisexual than you choose to be left-handed or ambidextrous; it's a morally neutral position.

Category mistake
Sexual expression and behaviour, however, is cultural and psychological, just like the expression of many other core personality traits. Innate traits express themselves in a multitude of ways, depending on the psychological, cultural and political environment. Cultures, like people, can be alcoholic (Soviet Russia), homosexual (ancient Greece), conformist or liberal, creative or stifling. Knowingly or unknowingly, homophobic governments make the category mistake of confusing core personality with cultural expression, criminalising, in the process, a fairly stable and substantial minority of any given population.

In this case, Bahati wants to get rid of those pesky "sexual rights activists seeking to impose their values of sexual promiscuity", as well as gay pornographers and paedophiles. There is no distinction in his mind between people who fall in love with people of their own gender, and sexual sleaze and crime: it's all a filthy mess of HIV, pornography, western values, decadence, feminism and predation. The draft bill separates "the offence of homosexuality" from "aggravated homosexuality". The former is consensual but the bill addresses only the "offender", as though in gay relationships there is only ever a perpetrator and a victim:

(1) a person commits the offence of homosexuality if
(a) he penetrates the anus or mouth of another person of the same sex with his penis or any other sexual contraption;
(b) he or she uses any object of sexual contraption to penetrate or stimulate sexual organ of a person of the same sex;
(c) he or she touches another person with the intention of committing . . . homosexuality.
(2) a person who commits an offence under this section shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for life.

The second, more serious offence of "aggravated homosexuality" turns on the notion of the "serial offender", defined in the introduction to the law as "a person who has previous convictions of the offence of homosexuality or related offences." Anyone who is a confirmed gay man or lesbian and already has a sexual history faces the death penalty, alongside homosexual rapists and child abusers.

This is how the law will work: victims are not to be penalised; they are to be assisted, and their identities protected. Judges may order that the offender has to pay them compensation. In addition, "aiding", "abetting" or "promoting" homosexuality becomes illegal. Perhaps, most importantly, failure to inform the authorities, within 24 hours, of suspected homosexuals is criminalised. The Ugandan people must turn informants - or risk jail. Lovers must choose between "victim" or "offender"; the former protected and paid, the latter imprisoned or killed.

A culture of violence
Criminalisation of homosexuals in Britain led to blackmail, prison sentences, hormonal "treatments", suicides, sexual repression and ruined lives. The Ugandan bill, however, like the Nazi laws before it, makes homosexuality punishable, ultimately, by death.

A decade ago, I visited the vast refugee camps in the north of Uganda. The Lord's Resistance Army had been conducting murderous raids from their camps in Southern Sudan, abducting children. The abducted boys, brutalised and drugged, became soldiers; the girls were kept as slaves. I remember the fixed smiles of the girls who had managed to escape from captivity. I remember their drawings of killings and death. Sexual violence is everywhere in Uganda. This bill, too, is part of that culture. And what is the death penalty for homosexuality if not sexual murder? The state that sets out to purge the nation of homosexuality becomes, in the end, itself a sexual predator.

Gay and Seeking a Job?

Two years ago, Matthew Logan went to the Out to Work job fair for gay men and lesbians, and he met representatives for AXA Equitable. Last year, he went to the fair and decided to work for the company. On Thursday, he was back to recruit.

The Out to Work job fair was originally started as a diversity outreach project to showcase workplaces that are friendly to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered employees. This year, it has become an economic lifeline for thousands who are out of work. More than 2,000 people preregistered for Thursday’s job fair, which took place at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in Greenwich Village. Last year, 300 did, though about 1,500 ultimately showed up.

This year, about 2,500 people attended the job fair. Laid-off M.B.A.’s, recent college grads and entrepreneurs waited in lines that stretched down the block in both directions. A flurry of suits, BlackBerries and résumés converged in a lavender room under disco balls.

Despite the tough economic times, the job fair had the same number of employers recruiting as last year: about 50. They represented a range of enterprises, private and public, big and small: HBO, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Gay Men’s Health Crisis and Pfizer. While finance and Fortune Companies were there in force, the entertainment companies — such as HBO and A&E — had notably much longer lines than the others.

The organizers looked to the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, which evaluates workplaces for gay-friendly policies, like domestic partner benefits and affinity groups for to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered employees.

“We started with the companies that got good marks on the report card,” said Tony Juliano, the president of the Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce, a sponsored of the fair. Some companies are known to be more friendly than others.

Those who attended the fair emphasized that it was not just about finding a job, but finding a job where they did not have to have second thoughts about putting a personal photo on their desk, bringing a same-sex companion to a corporate social event, or obtaining health insurance for their domestic partners.

Mr. Juliano, who is gay, recalled that 30 years ago, he would have a female friend come to company events when he worked at AT&T. “She was my beard,” he said. (AT&T is now a progressive company, he added.)

Mr. Logan, 42, came out to colleagues 12 years ago and was met with some surprise. “Some friends say I’m the straightest gay person they’ve ever met,” he said. “I’m a boring M.B.A. finance guy” who likes sports. (He even invests in a gay sports bar called Gym.) But he had become tired of having co-workers ask “what her name was” when he mentioned he went to a movie with someone. Finally he would just say, “Her name was Bill.”

“I’m not bashful to talk about who I wake up with in the morning,” he said. “It was career limiting,” Mr. Logan said. “They didn’t discriminate against me, but they didn’t feel comfortable inviting me to dinner.” Without the dinners and the golf outings, a person is not in line for the next promotion, he noted.

“You can’t be part of the old boys’ club,” he said. In contrast, AXA Equitable has marketing materials aimed at gay and lesbian clients. He picked up one brochure. It explained that gay men and lesbians could create trusts so as to leave inheritances for partners. “I wouldn’t have joined if they weren’t progressive,” he said.