Gay Ugandans ‘go back into hiding’ after MPs introduce horrific anti-LGBTQ+ law

LGBTQ+ Ugandans are taking drastic steps to survive after MPs revived a controversial anti-LGBTQ+ bill, with one calling being gay a ‘cancer’.

The ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2022’ states that being gay ‘contravenes the order of nature’ and ‘poses a threat to the stability and survival of the family’.

‘Noting that,’ a motion for the draft bill tabled Tuesday adds, ‘the existing law … does not adequately address this creeping evil’.

Being gay is already illegal in Uganda and carries up to life imprisonment.

Days after Uganda’s parliament ordered an investigation into the ‘promotion of homosexuality’ in schools, Eric Ndawula was outed as gay (Picture: Reuters)

Anita Among, the speaker of the Parliament of Uganda, said at a prayer service in parliament: ‘You are either with us or you’re with the Western world.’

Tensions – and fear – are rising in Uganda for LGBTQ+ people. Among them is Kampala resident Eric Ndawula, who was outed by an online video.

His landlord almost immediately evicted him.

‘I am now a threat to the children around because I am going to recruit them into homosexuality,’ Ndawula told Reuters ironically.

After all, the new anti-LGBTQ+ bill claims without a shred of evidence that LGBTQ+ ‘propaganda’ has led to ‘hundreds of children being lured and initiated into this practice’.

Life is already challenging for LGBTQ+ Ugandans. Isolation, verbal abuse, threats, violence and fear are what so many know well.

Law enforcement has a track record for ‘blackmailing and extorting’ LGBTQ+ people, Frank Mugisha, whose advocacy group Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) was shut down by the government last year, said.

Bigoted MPs have claimed LGBTQ+ people are ‘recruiting’ children (Picture: Reuters)

Ndawula’s landlord evicted him for being gay (Picture: Reuters)

Among also directed the education committee to investigate schools suspected of ‘encouraging’ and ‘promoting’ LGBTQ+ rights in January, DW reported.

‘People have gone back into hiding, people have gone back into the closet … people are getting arrested,’ Mugisha added.

The new anti-LGBTQ+ bill is a revival of the Anti-Homosexuality Act (2014), named the ‘Kill the Gays bill’ by western media.

The original proposal would have introduced the death penalty – but lawmakers scrapped it amid international outcry.

President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni said one of the reasons he signed the law was that Ugandan scientists claimed they found no genetic basis for being gay.

Uganda’s constitutional court declared the bill ‘null and void’ on procedural grounds.

Being gay in Uganda is already punishable with life in prison (Picture: AFP)

Asuman Basalirwa, an opposition lawmaker, tabled a similarly named bill this week that would introduce a raft of new felonies.

To applause from MPs, Basarliwa said: ‘In this country, or in this world, we talk about human rights.

‘But it is also true that there are human wrongs. I want to submit … that homosexuality is a human wrong,’ he said, adding that homosexuality is ‘a cancer’.

The ‘promotion of homosexuality’ – from ‘funding’ LGBTQ+ groups to even supporting queer rights online or in films – will face up to two years in jail, according to the draft.

The law would force queer Ugandans to undergo an HIV test – showing how entangled the virus is with homophobia.

‘Victims of homosexuality’, meanwhile, will not be jailed and might even be liable for compensation.

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