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Abstract
The passage of an Anti-Homosexuality Act in the Uganda Parliament (December 2013), its endorsement by President Yoweri Museveni (February 2014), and subsequent invalidation in Uganda's Supreme Court (July 2014), have focused international attention on Uganda's punitive attitudes to the gay and lesbian community, the survival of colonial sodomy laws and the recent legislative campaigns to intensify anti-gay laws. Much international coverage has focused on the impact of religious campaigns from American Pentecostal and evangelical constituencies to alert Ugandans to the dangers of ‘homosexuality’. International press coverage has also often characterised Uganda as a deeply conservative, deeply religious country, where attitudes have traditionally been unsympathetic to gays and lesbians, and to sexual expressions which deviate from the heterosexual norm. This paper challenges many of these stereotypes. It attempts to show that American conservative religion is neither as widespread nor as important as the publicity accorded to it suggests. The paper seeks to demonstrate that the majority religious communities, the Roman Catholic Church and Anglican Church of Uganda, are deeply embedded within Ugandan culture, and are much more important as shapers of public opinion and in echoing public sentiment than Pentecostal churches. In that sense the anti-homosexuality campaign cannot be primarily seen as a response to recent external conservative influences. The two major churches claim to speak for the vast majority of Ugandans, and to have a central role in shaping debates about the ethical foundations of Uganda's social, spiritual and political life. Their influence on the debates about homosexuality has been decisive in a number of ways, which will be explored in this paper. Nevertheless, despite the churches' recent intervention in opposition to Gay rights, the paper seeks to question the idea that Uganda's culture is as solidly homophobic as is sometimes portrayed, both by Ugandans keen to assert that homosexuality is alien to Africa, and international critics keen to characterise Uganda as deeply entrenched in homophobia. On the contrary, the paper seeks to show that homophobia is, if anything, quite a recent phenomenon in Uganda, and is relatively shallow.
Notes
1. www.godlovesuganda.com. Film directed by Roger Ross Williams. Scholarly adviser: Revd. Kapya Kaoma.
2. http://callmekuchu. A Dogwood DVD. Film directed by Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall.
3. Uganda Bureau of Statistics, “The 2002 Population and Housing Census.” www.ubos.org.
4. Cf. Gifford, African Christianity: Its Public Role.
5. I would like to acknowledge gratefully the help of Omw. Stephen Ssenkaaba and Revd. Amos Kasibante in composing this essay. Stephen is a journalist in Kampala, and a Catholic. Amos is an Anglican priest, ordained in the COU, but now serving in the Church of England. Both gave me invaluable advice. The views which I express on homosexuality are my own.
6. Welbourn, Religion and Politics in Uganda 1952–1962.
7. Jones, Beyond the State in Rural Uganda. This is a compelling study of Catholics, Protestants and Pentecostals as three distinct religious communities in Teso, eastern Uganda.
8. Ward, “Eating and Sharing”.
9. Gariyo, The Press and Democratic Struggles in Uganda 1900–1962.
10. Hastings, A History of African Christianity 1950–1975, 194, 202.
11. I worked in Mukono at the Bishop Tucker College, where the radio centre was situated, from 1976 to 1990, when Revd. Jackson Turyagyenda, a priest from Kigezi, was director.
12. Information from Mr. Stephen Ssenkaaba, a journalist working in Kampala.
13. Mbiti, Bible and Theology in African Christianity, citing H. Buerkle, “Patterns of Sermons from Various Parts of Africa.”
14. Mijoga, “The Bible in Malawi: A Brief Survey of Its Impact in Society.”
15. Ssekamwa, History and Development of Education in Uganda. Mwesigwa, “Religious Pluralism and Conflict as Issues in Religious Education in Uganda.”
16. Ward, “The East African Revival.”; Peterson, Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival: A History of Dissent, c. 1935–1972.
17. There are many accounts of the Balokole movement, many from insiders. See, MacMaster, A Gentle Wind of God: The Influence of the East African Revival; Ward and Wild-Wood, The East African Revival: History and Legacies.
18. For a vivid account see Hastings, “Ganda Catholic Spirituality.”
19. Taylor, The Growth of the Church in Buganda.
20. Doyle, “Pre-marital Sexuality in Great Lakes Africa 1900–1980,” 243.
21. Sadgrove, “The Condom Culture Is Not the Kingdom Culture.”
22. Tripp, Women and Politics in Uganda.
23. I am grateful to Revd Amos Kasibante for his memories of Nsaba Butoro's career.
24. http://www.newsciencejournalism.com. ethics, 12 March 2012: ‘Minister in Uganda on why he stopped a gay meeting’ (Interview with Esther Nakkazi).
25. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa: 2 May 2013, ‘Miniskirts and morals’.
26. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa: 21 June 2012 ‘Uganda pro-gay groups face ban’.
27. Personal Conversation at the launching of my book on the East African Revival in Kampala, August 2010.
28. www.newvision. 12 December 2009.
29. Faupel, African Holocaust.
30. For a revisionist account, see Hoad, African Intimacies.
31. Rahul Rao has been doing very interesting research, as yet unpublished, on the perceptions of pilgrims to the Namugongo shrine.
32. Personal observation, through attending the services at the Anglican shrine at Namugongo regularly between 1976 and 1990.
33. Ward, “Same-sex Relations in Africa and the Debate on Homosexuality in East African Anglicanism.”
34. Hassett, Anglican Communion in Crisis; How Episcopal Dissidents and Their African Allies Are Restructuring Anglicanism.
35. Leighton, Life High the Cross, A History of the Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry.
36. Noll has a website which catalogues his theological views over many years: www.stephenswitness.org.
37. A talk by Alison Barfoot, You Tube: Alison Barfoot, 6 May 2012. She is the founder of Global Mobilization Ministries, based in Newport, CA, from which she gets support, and which links the COU with traditionalist parishes in the USA.
38. Tamale, Homosexuality: Perspectives form Uganda.
39. Tibatembwa-Ekirikubinza, Sexual Assaults and Offences against Morality.
40. Ward, “Religious Institutions and Actors and Religious Attitudes to Homosexual Rights: South Africa and Uganda.”
41. Letter to the Monitor newspaper, 24 November 2009. www.monitor.co.ug
42. Letter to the New Vision newspaper, 28 July 2008. Quoted in Gay Uganda.com.
43. Daily Monitor, 12 January 2010.
44. Website of the ACNA: www.anglicanchurchnet. ‘Archbishop Duncan preaches at Ugandan Enthronement’, 16 December 2012.
45. New Vision, 8 January 2013.
46. New Vision, 19 January 2013.
47. Leadership. www.leadershipmagazine.org.
48. Guardian, 4 December 2009. www.guardian.co.uk.
50. The Morning Breeze interview can be viewed through www.huffingtonpost.com, ‘Uganda Priest suspended’ 8 May 2013.
52. Gayuganda.blogspot entries, 2 March 2008, 16 July 2009, and scattered references.
53. Gayuganda.blogspot entry, 11 January 2010.
54. Gayuganda.blogspot entry, 7 April 2008.
55. Gayuganda.blogspot. entry, 16 July 2009.
56. Mulokole. In Luganda singular of Balokole.
57. Gayuganda.blogspot entry, 14 February 2010.
58. Gayuganda.blogspot entry, 28 December 2006.
59. Gayuganda.blogspot entry, 28 January 2010.
60. Gayuganda.blogspot ‘Boy Meets Boy Parts, 1, 2, 3’, entries, 10, 11 and 24 January 2010.
61. Gayuganda.blogspot. entry, 27 January 2010.
62. New Vision, 27 September 2014.