I was catching up on clips from "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" and I was watching an interview he did with Pepe Julian Onziema talking about the current state of homosexuality laws in Uganda.
Now, if you're not aware, it is currently illegal in the country of Uganda to be gay, with punishments up to and including life in prison for "aggravated homosexuality." (note, the law with this last punishment provision has been struck down this past August as unconstitutional by the high court in Uganda)What's more, the culture that's encouraged by these laws often leads to ongoing near government sanctioned harassment of individuals who are suspected or who have acknowledged being gay, including activists who have been beaten to death outside of their homes.
I'm going to say, for the record, I don't consider this a "gay right" or even "LGBT Rights" issue. It's a human rights issue. People should not have to fear being beaten to death outside of their homes, period. I have a lot I could say on this issue, but it's not the one I'm going to address directly at the moment.
In the story before the interview, John Oliver reviewed some of the history leading up to the current state of the homosexuality laws in Uganda. Unfortunately, many of these laws are carried over from the days when Uganda was under British rule. What's more, the escalation of both the laws and the public harassment of homosexuals in the country recently have been in large part due to the activities of American Christian missionaries. People who went to Uganda supposing to present the Gospel, and have largely spread a message of how "evil" homosexuals were. Even going so far as to state that homosexuals were in fact the originators of the Nazi regime (they neglect to explain how this lines up with Nazis including homosexuals in their concentration camps, isolating, imprisoning, and murdering them alongside of Jews, gypsies, and other groups deigned worthy of inhuman treatment) It seems that the message being brought by these individuals is almost exclusively centered on targeting homosexuals as the cause of most of society's ills. What's more, they have the ear of the government there. Scott Lively, one of the most public faces of this movement, has met repeatedly with Ugandan public officials, and led a conference attended by police officers, teachers, and national politicians. Lively has actually had suits brought against him, both here in the United States and in Uganda for his actions in this movement. In a US court he is being sued, charged with "inciting persecution against gays and lesbians," In response, Lively has stated " I've never done anything in Uganda except preach the Gospel and speak my opinion about the homosexual issue."
No. I'm sorry, but no.
Regardless of your feelings on how Scripture may teach on homosexuality, the Gospel does not focus on one sin. The Gospel's focus is not on hate. The Gospel's focus is not on pointing out enemies and trying to chase them away, though either legislation, public ridicule, or violent harassment. The Gospel is about the Salvation brought by Jesus Christ, the Love that God has for us as humanity, and the fact that ALL have sinned, regardless of race, creed, color, or nationality. We are all broken and imperfect, but we are also all made in the image of our Creator. There is no such thing as a sin that should be highlighted as the supposedly "primary evil"(though an argument could be made for greed). Spreading a message of hate is the last thing that the Gospel is meant to be about.
This brings me to the truly sad part. At one point in the interview, Onziema specifically refers to the Bible as a factor that has been used to drive people apart in Uganda. That the Bible has been a factor essentially trying to hold Africa as a whole back. It's clear that the image that Onziema and others like him in Uganda have of the Bible is that it is a stick to be used to attempt to beat this minority group into submission. That it is a tool of hate, not of love. On the same continent that gave us some of the greatest leaders of the early Christian faith, Clement, Origen, and Turtullian, we have a situation where the Bible and the message of Jesus Christ is seen as a foreign tool of persecution and discrimination. The same Jesus that flipped the tables of the money lenders, who were blocking off the one section of the Temple where Gentiles could come to worship, what would He do in Africa? What would He say to Scott Lively?
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