making homosexuality a crime, that in some cases, is now punishable by life in prison,

which is shocking. But in reading this news about Uganda, I began to realize how little

I knew about Uganda. So, I've looked into it and here's everything I found out.

First off it is here; landlocked in the middle of Africa.

It's official language is English, because it was under

British rule from 1894 to 1962, which is a very long time to be under someone else's

rule.

Even under the best conditions it takes a while to adjust out of that and Uganda has

not handled the transition well. The 25 years after the end of British rule

were marked by numerous military coups, and various different regimes;

the worst being Idi Amin's 9 year tenure as dictator in the 1970's.

He killed at least 300,000 Ugandans and decimated their economy. Yes. He's the evil dictator

played by

Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland.

And he was much worse in real life than even the movie depicted. And that is saying something...

Because that movie... Yikes.

After him, there were a few more coups ending with

the current President taking power in 1986. I say taking power, because he became President

in a violent takeover.

He's been President for 29 years. Early on he was seen as a positive step forward

for the country, and was even named a member of the

"New Generation of African Leaders" by the West, which was a buzzwordy term in the 90's

for African leaders we thought were bringing democracy and basic human rights to the area.

And, in reality, with these new laws he's actively going in the opposite direction.

Things in Uganda are bad, to say the least.

First off, the Ugandan Government is currently fighting a civil war with the Lord's Resistance

Army

led by Joseph Kony of Kony 2012 fame.

Some of you bought t-shirts if I remember correctly. Still wearing it? Cause he's still

out there.

Plus, Uganda will occasionally go to war/invade the Democratic Republic of Congo and other

nations in the region. To top all of this off, they are still one of the world's poorest

nations, with common pre-industrialization problems

like child labor and human trafficking.

That's the backdrop for what's going on socially in Uganda. And it's already a lot of horrible

stuff. I'm sad to say that we now have to talk about all the really bad stuff President

Museveni is doing.

He is most likely rigging elections. He is definitely restricting freedom of assembly,

censoring the media, persecuting political opponents, allowing torture and extrajudicial

killings by his security forces, and some say, committing

acts of genocide against the Acholi people, a minority groupin the north of the country.

He's basically doing all the evil dictator stuff. And before he put his name on an anti-gay

bill we were sending a lot of aid his way. So, why did he bother signing an anti-gay

bill, doesn't he have enough oppression on his plate already?

Well, Africa is not the most LGBT friendly place.

38 nations have laws on the books making homosexuality a crime.

Uganda has had a law in place against "buggery" since the Colonial British days.

And in a recent poll, 79% of people in Uganda support the new harsher law.

A lot of the anti-gay sentiments stem from the current HIV epidemic in Uganda, but it

also comes from outside forces.

One particularly vocal and bigoted outside force to be exact; American Evangelical Christians.

Evangelical Christian groups have been going on hate spreading missions to Uganda for years.

A man by the name of Scott Lively ran a seminar in Uganda called the "Seminar on Exposing

The Homosexuals' Agenda"

and it's been reported that this, and other efforts by Evangelical groups have influenced

lawmakers to be more aggressively homophobic. And these aren't just claims,

Lively is currently being sued by an Ugandan Gay Rights group for inciting the persecution

of gay men and lesbians in Uganda.

The bottom line is don't move to Uganda. It sucks over there.