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Gay Rights
Commission Condemns Uganda's Gay Policy
16 August 2006- Uganda- The
International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission have condemned the
decision by President Yoweri Museveni to ban same-sex marriage.
According to the commission, the
new law is the most recent in a series of attacks designed to silence
Uganda's increasingly vocal lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
community and sanction anti-gay violence.
The Minister of ethics and
integrity, Dr Nsaba Butuuro, said the law does not allow same-sex
marriages. He said this cannot be legalised because it is sexually
abnormal and unacceptable. He said it is stipulated in the Penal Code
and the Constitution that the only marriage recognised is between woman
and man.
Butuuro said the Ugandan law does
not discriminate against gay people but at the same time does not
encourage. IGLHRC's Senior Specialist Mr Cary Alan Johnson, said,
"Uganda is engaged in an active campaign of legislative overkill and
coercion to silence an emerging community for Africa."
Sodomy in Uganda is punishable by
life imprisonment.
Parliament passed the gay Bill in
July 2005. The President on September 29, 2005 signed the Bill making
Uganda the second country in the world to use its Constitution to outlaw
marriage between people of the same sex.
According to the Executive Director
of IGLHRC, Ms Paula Ettelbrick, "Constitutions are normally documents
which enshrine the rights of a country's citizens, in Uganda and Kenya,
they are being used to codify discrimination.
It's a blatant attempt to force
lesbians and gay men back into their closets." In October 2004, the then
Minister of Information, publicly supported police harassment of a gay
student group at Makerere University. In February 2005, the Media
Council, banned a staging of the play "The Vagina Monologues," by U.S.
author Eve Ensler.
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