Religious Leaders Urge Obama to Condemn Ugandan Anti-Gay Bill at Prayer Breakfast
Speakers at Tuesday morning’s launch warned that the Ugandan bill would cause a genocide of LGBT people in that nation. Moses, a gay man from Uganda seeking asylum in the United States, gave a chilling account of the harassment and terror he withstood growing up there—even before the bill, which would not only call for the death penalty and life imprisonment for LGBT people but also require friends and family to turn people suspected of being LGBT over to the authorities.
Moses, who addressed reporters with a paper bag over his head to conceal his identity, spoke of how in Uganda, “one would rather die than come out of the closet,” because LGBT people are so terrorized in a culture that portrays homosexuality as “deviant” behavior. He described being beaten at school and living in constant “fear of rejection, fear of isolation by my family, making my family a laughingstock… . fear of losing friends, fear for my life.” He experienced a “constant feeling of shame,” and ultimately abandoned his studies and lost his job. LGBT people in Uganda, he said, are routinely denied housing because of fears of “spreading” their “deviant” behavior.
A striking image.
