ASU professor probes origins of anti-gay laws in Uganda

In an essay recently featured in Religion & Politics, assistant professor of global Christianity at Arizona State University Jason Bruner explores the origin of anti-homosexuality laws in Uganda.

When in February of this year, it was reported that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni planned to sign into law the nation’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, often referred to as the “Kill the Gays” bill, President Barack Obama called the move “a step backward for all Ugandans” and one that would “complicate” the U.S.-Ugandan relationship.

However, in his essay “Uganda’s President Will Sign Anti-Gay Bill. How Did the Nation Get to this Point?” Bruner asserts, “The bill’s passage and Museveni’s assent are but the latest in what has been a long, convoluted, and controversial international history.”

Bruner explains that while some attribute anti-homosexuality sentiments in Uganda as the result of American evangelicals and Pentecostals “exporting” their homophobic campaign to places like Uganda after failing in the U.S., “it is essential that Uganda’s unique social, religious, and political contexts not be neglected in understanding how the (Anit-Homosexuality) bill developed.”

Bruner quotes anthropologist Lydia Boyd: “'(To) analyze (the Anti-Homosexuality Bill) as simply the result of the transposition of an American homophobia misrepresents Ugandan concerns as mere reflections of an American agenda and obscures the motivations of local activists.’”