Uganda Bill, up for second reading

As the Uganda Parliament prepared to take up the proposed anti-homosexuality act for the second time today, Episcopal Cafe has rounded up the latest in the way of opposition, including statements of opposition from the European Union, the Church of Scotland, the Episcopal Church of Brazil, and the Archbishop of Canterbury (kind of). The latter comes to the world indirectly via a press release from the UK's Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM), which quotes the archbishop's press secretary as saying that the ABC

is "very clear that the private Member's Bill being discussed in Uganda as drafted is entirely unacceptable from a pastoral, moral and legal point of view." The press office went on to tell LGCM that the proposed Bill was "a cause of deep concern, fear and, to many, outrage."

The press office also claimed that the ABC

has been working intensively behind the scenes (over the past weeks) to ensure that there is clarity on how the proposed bill is contrary to Anglican teaching.

Yes, and Catholic teaching and Jewish teaching etc. But it's past time to address directly the bogus anti-colonialist argumentation conveyed most recently  to the London Times by James Nsaba Buturo, Uganda's Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity.

Mr Buturo maintained that it was a question of maintaining traditional Christian values as prescribed in the Bible. "You people in the West have no respect whatsoever for our traditional values," he said.

"I do understand in your case homosexuality is normal but here it is totally repugnant, it is repulsive, it's not something you would want to do if you have your normal faculties functioning," he said. "But there you are, in other societies it is different."

But of course that might require certain religionists to acknowledge that homosexuality is a natural phenomenon, universal among all peoples--with all that that implies for how they organize their own ecclesiastical business.