Haiti hatemongers: Our mirror image

By Ryan Graczkowski

You’ve all seen the advertisements on television. Some time, right in the middle of your primetime viewing, you see a child with a desperate, staring face, surrounded by a shack. Cue the sob story — no parents, barely getting by on hope and a dream and your donations, if you choose to give them.

I hate to admit this, especially in my first piece, but I have to say that my first thought is: How in the world does that rich white guy with the beard not get robbed? It certainly isn’t for the horrors that these people are enduring on a day-by-day basis. I don’t consider them. I don’t imagine that you do, either.

Please don’t misread me. I’m not trying to pass a moral judgment here. I’m just saying that I’m more inclined to think about my bills and getting gas in my car. I think that’s normal, so I’m saying that you are probably the same.

Haiti doesn’t let us have that excuse anymore.

Junk science breeds ‘Kill the Gays’ bill

By Nicole Navarro

Proposed legislation in Uganda may have adverse side effects and can result in death. The proposed “Kill the Gays” bill was brought to Uganda’s political forefront after three American evangelical Christians, who claim gays can be “cured,” visited the country earlier this year.

In a three day anti-gay seminar, the American activists discussed making gay people straight, the connection between homosexuality and pedophilia, and the “gay agenda” as a whole.

Not long after their visit, Uganda’s Anti Homosexuality Bill of 2009 was born.

If the bill is enacted, here is some of what homosexual Ugandans can look forward to. If convicted of engaging in same-sex acts and you are HIV-positive, you receive the death penalty. Being convicted of engaging in same-sex acts if you are not HIV- positive lands you life in prison.

If you know someone who is engaging in same-sex acts and you don’t report it to the government within 24 hours, you get three years in jail. Those funding or sponsoring homosexuality or related activities get a seven-year sentence. Uganda also plans to extradite their citizens back to the country to stand trial if they commit the offense of homosexual activity elsewhere in the world.

How could these American activists have such an influence on Uganda’s Parliament? The fact that the men were represented as experts in the field of homosexuality certainly helped their cause. But maybe more importantly, Ugandans often blame Westerners for turning their children gay, so when those same Westerners show up to spread an anti-gay message, Ugandans listened, especially when one of the leading speakers was a westerner “cured” of being gay. Richard Cohen, author of Coming Out Straight and Gay Children, Straight Parents, is one of the activists blamed for supporting the bill.