I'm Seeing a Familiar Pattern, and it Scares the Dickens out of Me

Happy New Year, people. This is how the Evangelical faith and the government of Uganda choose to reward you on the occasion of this new beginning.

After a number of visits to Uganda from Evangelical Christians of America, the Ugandan government is putting into legislation a law which would impose a death sentence on homosexuals. This would make Uganda just another country that does this.

I really hate to judge another culture. I really do. But as far as I'm concerned, hatred and bigotry are not viable cultural traditions. It's just an excuse to keep making the world a far worse place. It's bad enough already!

In Uganda, the political majority believes in firm traditions, a very conservative view that includes the "traditional" view of family. There's nothing wrong with believing in old values. What's wrong about this is using those old values as a way to cleanse the ol' gene pool and make yourself a world where the so-called "undesirables" have been eliminated.

Who else had that dream?

Oh, yeah, his name was Hitler.

The Evangelicals' speeches and discussions included the ol far-right talking points that continue to make a lot of people sick: homosexuals carry disease; homosexuals are dedicated to making obsolete the Biblical concepts of "marriage" and "family"; homosexuals, as we all know, are sent by Satan to corrupt the word of God and convert all straight people to their insidious legion by raping those who won't consent.

So now, the same hate mongers who gave these little pep talks are trying to divorce themselves (no pun intended!) from any responsibility for the proposed Ugandan law. They're saying they just basically wanted to spread the word, not become unwitting proponents of mass murder.

Of course, I for one don't hold the EC visitors solely responosible for this disaster, but they can't just weasel their way out of blame. In unstable situations, the wrong words from the proper people can result in the lighting of some very dangerous fuses. The situation in Uganda already was unstable: the GLBT population were receiving death threats, for one; the government also condoned the galling practice of "corrective rape." Now, thanks to the words of a few hateful individuals who think they had the best of intentions, the fuse has been lit. Will the bomb be a dud? Or will it cause a concussive blast that knocks a hole in the freaking mantle?

Knowing human nature, it'll probably be the latter.

Just keep this in mind. Those same kinds of rumors (mentioned earlier) about gays and lesbians are the same kind of vicious lies spread about the Jewish people decades and centuries earlier-- the words that were, whether directly or indirectly, responsible for Russian pogroms and the Holocaust. It was said at the time that Jewish boys loved to rape Gentile girls; that Jewish religious ceremonies used the blood of Christian babies, which they would obtain by any means necessary; and that Judaism was-- you guessed it!-- sent by Satan to pervert the word of God and destroy the world of the righteous.

Something else to keep in mind: when the Holocaust was over and six million had been butchered, people still blamed the entire war on a handful of Jewish profiteers.

Is the world so happy and carefree that we need another Holocaust to cleanse the gene pool?