Represenative Peter Roskam has recently co-sponsored important House resolutions honoring the New Orleans Saints on their Superbowl victory and congratulating Chicago White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle on pitching a perfect game. We can’t imagine, therefore, why it would be any trouble for him to sign-on to a resolution condemning a Ugandan bill that would implement extreme punishments, including the death penalty and lifetime imprisonment, for persons convicted of homosexual activity.
The resolution in question is H. Res. 1064 – Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the “Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009″ under consideration by the Parliament of Uganda, that would impose long term imprisonment and the death penalty for certain acts, threatens the protection of fundamental human rights, and for other purposes. It was introduced on February 3rd by Representative Howard Berman, a Democrat from California’s 28th District. As of this writing, only a single member of Mr. Roskam’s Republican party has signed on as a cosponsor – Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida’s 18th District.
The meat of the resolution is as follows:
Resolved, That the House of Representatives–
(1) strongly believes that–
(A) all people possess an intrinsic human dignity, regardless of sexual orientation, and share fundamental human rights;
(B) the ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009’ introduced in the Ugandan Parliament, which includes the extreme penalties of death and life in prison, poses a serious threat to the life, liberty, and security of the person and, if enacted, would set a troubling precedent for other countries; and
(C) the requirement that individuals report suspected homosexual individuals to the Ugandan Government could undermine Uganda’s efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, and interfere with care and counseling by family members, doctors, pastors, teachers, and others; and
(2) calls upon the President and the Secretary of State to–
(A) impress upon the Ugandan Government the United States belief in the intrinsic human dignity of all Ugandans, regardless of sexual orientation;
(B) express unequivocal United States opposition to the ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009’ introduced in the Ugandan Parliament; and
(C) ensure that resources committed to the global HIV/AIDS response are utilized in a manner that is efficient, effective, and appropriate to the local epidemiology of the disease, including in Uganda.
We think that there is little to complain of in that text – unless, of course, one believes that gay people should be put to death. Peter Roskam has never been friendly to legislation granting equal rights to gay people, but this is a wholly different matter. Mr. Roskam should run, not walk, to get his name added as a co-sponsor. A similar resolution is pending in the Senate.
American right-wing Christian extremists appear to have been at least influential in the origins of the Ugandan bill. These include Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Pastor Rick Warren of California’s Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life. Both Inhofe and Warren have finally, after considerable adverse press coverage, publicly denounced the Ugandan bill and denied any role in it’s genesis. Rachel Maddow of MSNBC has done some excellent reporting documenting their connections to Uganda and to leaders involved in propagation of the bill. A couple of her videos can be found at the end of this post.
The Oklahoman reported that Republican Senator Inhofe has made at least 20 trips to Africa since 1999 at a cost to taxpayers of more than $187,000, another example of the GOP’s stwewardship of your tax dollars. Inhofe has publically referred to the trips as “a Jesus thing” . According to journalist Jeff Sharlet, both Inhofe and David Bahati, the Ugandan who authored the bill, are members of a secretive Christian group known as “The Family” and Inhofe and Bahati were close.
A number of other members of the House and Senate are involved in The Family, including Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, with whom Peter Roskam traveled to Honduras last fall. After that trip, Roskam remarked that “Senator DeMint is so grounded and wise and I came away just very, very impressed with him.” We are unaware of any direct ties between Peter Roskam and The Family.
