GENEVA (RNS/ENI) The World Council of Churches has added its voice to growing concerns around the world about a proposed Ugandan law that would allow the jailing and possible execution of gays and lesbians.
Current Ugandan law allows for people to be jailed for 14 years for engaging in homosexual acts; the new proposed law would raise that to life imprisonment, though no one has ever been convicted of homosexual acts in the country.
The WCC’s general secretary, the Rev. Samuel Kobia, said he was “saddened and distressed” over the new law in a letter to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
“It is my hope and my prayer that you will join the African church leaders and fellow people of faith, to abstain from supporting any law which can lead to a death penalty; promotes prejudice and hatred; and which can be easily manipulated to oppress people,” Kobia wrote.
He also warned that “all the discussions, time, efforts and sometimes money, used on the issue of homosexuality distracts us from nonjudgmental and constructive discussions about the majority’s problems.” He warned that such a bill, if enacted, “will leave a lot of room for manipulation, abuse … and oppression of people.”
The bill has been condemned by a wide range of religious leaders — including some who generally oppose homosexuality — including the Vatican, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.
Recently a group of pastors in Uganda upbraided California megachurch pastor Rick Warren after he asked them to speak out against the country’s anti-homosexuality bill. Warren has a long history of HIV/AIDS work in Africa.
A group of 20 denominational leaders in the Uganda National Pastors’ Task Force Against Homosexuality demanded that Warren “biblically issue an apology for having wronged us,” Christianity Today magazine reported.
“Your letter has caused great distress and the pastors are demanding that you issue a formal apology for insulting the people of Africa by your very inappropriate bullying use of your church and purpose-driven pulpits to coerce us into the `evil’ of Sodomy and Gaymorrah (sic),” said the pastors in a letter e-mailed to Warren.
