Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” Law: Rick Warren Defends the Indefensible and Lies.
Rick Warren is under fire for helping to push Uganda’s “kill the queers” law. His response? Lie about his involvement in the process, play the Oppression Olympics and pretend, suddenly, that he’s all about non-interference in the lives and nations of others.
Uganda has proposed a barbaric new anti-gay law.
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.
Rick Warren has been under fire for this and has engaged in various tactics to avoid addressing his involvement directly. First he tried the diversion/Oppression Olympics route.
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Meanwhile, on his Twitter page, Warren seemed to question the fuss. “Globally last yr 146,000 Christians were put to death because of their faith. No one, except Christians, said anything,” he wrote.
I won’t get into the number Warren quoted, which I highly suspect he pulled out of his backside. But I will say this; I don’t condone murdering anybody, but there are no individuals or groups going around the world advocating the oppression and even murder of Christians. There are many individuals and groups working within nations and touring the world fueling anti-gay hatred, oppression and murder, and Rick Warren is one of them. He may not be one of the people who do this for a living (Scott Lively, Paul Cameron, Brian Brown, Maggie Gallagher) but he’s still part of the problem. Accordingly his attempts at diversion are not only cowardly but disgusting.
But Warren won’t go so far as to condemn the legislation itself. A request for a broader reaction to the proposed Ugandan anti-homosexual laws generated this response: “The fundamental dignity of every person, our right to be free, and the freedom to make moral choices are gifts endowed by God, our creator. However, it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations.”
It’s not his calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political processes of other nations? He didn’t seem to mind pushing his ABC (Abstinence Before Condoms) shtick over there. And in 2008 Warren designated Uganda his second “Purpose Driven Nation” and worked closely with virulently anti-gay Ugandan preacher Martin Ssempa. Warren didn’t mind fostering, actively, the hatred that led to the law in the first place. So why is it that after being neck-deep in their politics for years he’s suddenly got a policy of non-interference once the deadly fruits of his labors are being realized? Can you say hypocrite?
Sorry, Warren, the blood of gay Ugandans is all over your hands and you can’t pretend otherwise no matter how much you deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate.
