Dear Mr. Louthan:

Thank you for contacting me regarding anti-homosexual legislation being considered in Uganda. As your voice in Washington, D.C., I appreciate you taking the time to share your views with me.

As you know, the Ugandan Parliament is currently considering legislation that would impose strict penalties for homosexual acts. The Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2009 would require severe prison sentences for someone caught in a homosexual act and for helping or counseling another person engage in a homosexuality. Additionally this legislation would allow for the death penalty if someone is convicted of having sex with a minor or disabled person, if the offender is HIV-positive, and for “serial” offenders.

I was shocked to learn that this legislation was being considered in Uganda. I do not, nor have I ever, supported or condoned this legislation. It is my hope that Uganda will abandon this unjust and extraordinarily harsh legislation.

I have worked closely with Ugandan President Museveni on many important issues. In fact, I have made over 100 visits to the African continent and have met with and built relationships with people from all walks of life. During my time on the continent, I witnessed first-hand the significant and strategic place in the world that Africa holds. It is the world’s second-largest and second most-populous continent, comprised of 53 nations and over 900 million people. Africa has largely been ignored and neglected by the rest of the world – initially seen as the impenetrable “Dark Continent,” then colonized and exploited, and then neglected. However, I believe there is much hope for the future of African countries and better days are ahead.

Please do not hesitate to contact me again regarding issues that are important to you.

Some minor formatting inconsistencies (which I have fixed here) lead me to believe that the third paragraph was pasted in, so I wonder if there are perhaps alternate forms of it that could be used for people with less obviously anti-killing-the-gays views than my own.

I don’t really have much editorializing to do, but frankly for someone who is “shocked” and who hopes for the abandonment of such “unjust and extraordinarily harsh legislation” it seems odd that he, who has “worked closely with Ugandan President Museveni on many important issues”, has decided not to work with him on this one.

It would also be nice if he would make more public his “shock”, but even that might be too much to wish for from the man who practically (if not literally) invented the “God, Gays, and Guns” platform.

Life imprisonment is the minimum punishment for anyone convicted of having gay sex, under an anti-homosexuality bill currently before Uganda’s parliament. If the accused person is HIV positive or a serial offender, or a “person of authority” over the other partner, or if the “victim” is under 18, a conviction will result in the death penalty.

Members of the public are obliged to report any homosexual activity to police with 24 hours or risk up to three years in jail – a scenario that human rights campaigners say will result in a witchhunt. Ugandans breaking the new law abroad will be subject to extradition requests.

Several people, including Rachel Maddow, have brought up The Family, the secretive evangelical group in Washington that puts on the National Prayer Breakfast, also mentioning Sen. Jim Inhofe’s connections both to the group and to Uganda. In fact, Inhofe has taken a special interest in Uganda, having traveled there about twice a year since 1998. According to a piece in The Oklahoman, Charles Ssentongo (deputy chief of mission at the Ugandan Embassy in Washington) said Inhofe “has been a good friend of Africa and Uganda in particular. Senator Inhofe has been one of the leading voices on the various issues facing our continent.”

As a constituent of his, I wrote a note to Sen. Inhofe using the form on his web site:

Dear Sen. Inhofe,

Charles Ssentongo, deputy chief of mission at the Ugandan Embassy in Washington, described you as “a good friend of Africa and Uganda in particular.” As your constituent, I would like to ask you to exercise your friendship with Uganda to clarify your position on an issue that has been raised there recently.

According the British newspaper The Guardian, Uganda, a state that already has strong anti-homosexuality laws, is considering the passage of an even stronger new bill. From the article:

“Life imprisonment is the minimum punishment for anyone convicted of having gay sex, under an anti-homosexuality bill currently before Uganda’s parliament. If the accused person is HIV positive or a serial offender, or a “person of authority” over the other partner, or if the “victim” is under 18, a conviction will result in the death penalty.

Members of the public are obliged to report any homosexual activity to police with 24 hours or risk up to three years in jail – a scenario that human rights campaigners say will result in a witchhunt. Ugandans breaking the new law abroad will be subject to extradition requests.”

There have been several articles written recently insinuating your support for this action, even going so far as blaming your and others’ humanitarian interest in the country for this bill, currently under consideration. This seems doubtful.

However, given your particular relationship with Uganda, I would imagine you are uniquely qualified to comment on this “aggravated homosexuality” bill, and that your condemnation of it might carry special weight.

I would appreciate hearing your comments and, hopefully, even some kind of public statement. Thank you for your time.

It is not what I would call strongly worded by any means, but I feel it gets the point across. I’ll post any reply that I receive.

http://firedoglake.com/2008/05/24/come-saturday-morning-bike-commuting-for-newbies/ – Bike commuting for newbies. In spite of some interestingly wrong predictions about gas prices at the beginning, it’s full of good information.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/amit-agarwal/3196386402/sizes/l/ – Chart types for different tasks. A great way to pick the most appropriate type of chart for showing the right kind of data.

http://www.sloshspot.com/blog/06-24-2008/Ten-Cool-and-Free-Magic-Bar-Tricks-23 – Ten bar tricks. It’s maaagic!

Now a pair of nerdy ones:

http://www.cs.trinity.edu/About/The_Courses/cs301/math-for-the-layman/ – Math for the layman. Written by the eminent Kenneth Iverson of IBM and APL fame, this is a ground-up course in theoretical mathematics from the basics of numbers to differential and integral calculus.

http://www.linuxalt.com/ – The Linux Alternative Project. This site basically provides a table where one looks up a piece of Windows software whose functionality one wants to replace in a GNU/Linux environment.

http://blog.nutritiondata.com/ndblog/2008/12/resolution-resc.html – Resolution Rescue, a quick rundown of some healthful foods to satisfy cravings for less ideal snacks.

http://www.esquire.com/style/ESQ0107instruction – The Esquire guide to wearing scarves

http://www.tieknot.com – A very handy rundown of how to tie various knots in neckties

http://www.ehow.com/PrintArticle.html?id=15994 – How to tie a Double Windsor, the only knot that I like that tieknot.com left out.

http://www.home-ec101.com/retro-saturday-top-5-things-to-clean/ – Top 5 Things To Clean, a handy idea of the first five things to be cleaned in a home-mess emergency.

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So apparently the church next door to the Coffee House on Cherry Street has gotten tired of coffee shop customers parking in their otherwise empty parking lot. This seems a bit heavy-handed to me, but, hey, it’s their right, I suppose.

In other, related, news, I’ve been back at the coffee shop lately. I sat and chatted with James while reading the new Terry Pratchett book, Nation, for nearly 5 hours today. It was fun. The book is a tad more serious than I’m used to reading from Pratchett, but it’s quite good.

In other news, it turns out that the way to get trash removed from the halls of Kep in a hurry is to stack it in front of the door to a lab whose occupants want desperately to prove that the lab is in use.

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