David Kato, considered a founding father of Uganda’s nascent gay rights movement, was beaten to death with a hammer a couple weeks ago. Kato’s name and face appeared on the front page of the tabloid Rolling Stone’s infamous “hang them” issue. President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton issued statements condemning the killing.
A melee broke out at the funeral when the pastor conducting the ceremony lashed out against homosexuality. Kato’s friends had to bury him themselves. Rachel Maddow has video and comments on all of it:
Her conclusion:
Will the donor countries that Uganda relies on so heavily say publicly, ‘We are paying attention to this murder. Do not disappear David Kato’s murder or we will make you a pariah for it’? Given American citizens’ vile involvement in this, maybe the United States can take the lead.
From the original NYTimes story reporting Kato’s murder:
“David’s death is a result of the hatred planted in Uganda by U.S. evangelicals in 2009,” Val Kalende, the chairwoman of one of Uganda’s gay rights groups, said in a statement. “The Ugandan government and the so-called U.S. evangelicals must take responsibility for David’s blood.”
Ms. Kalende was referring to visits in March 2009 by a group of American evangelicals, who held rallies and workshops in Uganda discussing how to turn gay people straight, how gay men sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” intended to “defeat the marriage-based society.”
The Americans involved said they had no intention of stoking a violent reaction. But the antigay bill was drafted shortly thereafter. Some of the Ugandan politicians and preachers who wrote it had attended those sessions and said that they had discussed the legislation with the Americans.
Yes, yes, yes, so Kato was beaten to death with a hammer. But the evangelicals have been “bludgeoned” with nasty emails!
On Thursday, Don Schmierer, one of the American evangelicals who visited Uganda in 2009, said Mr. Kato’s death was “horrible.”
“Naturally, I don’t want anyone killed, but I don’t feel I had anything to do with that,” said Mr. Schmierer, who added that in Uganda he had focused on parenting skills. He also said that he had been a target of threats himself, recently receiving more than 600 messages of hate mail related to his visit.
“I spoke to help people,” he said, “and I’m getting bludgeoned from one end to the other.”
An anonymous police source, predictably, claims Kato’s murderer was in retaliation for coerced sodomy.
AMERICAblog Gay details Sen. Jim Inhofe’s 108 trips to Uganda, where he describes his influence as “A Jesus Thing.”
Our Kathy Kattenberg on the National Prayer Breakfast and The Family.
Thanks to reader DLS for bringing Kato’s killing to my attention. While I have posted on it before, I was otherwise occupied when the news broke. The “Kill the Gays Bill” is still a live possibility in Uganda. It’s a story I intend to stay on top of. Thanks, David, for helping me out.