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Gay news: 'Lesbianism, bestiality and other sexual perversions' should be prohibited he says
Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Orombi
Archbishop of Uganda backs Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Archbishop of Uganda Henry Orombi has publicly voiced his support for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill under consideration by Uganda's parliament, deliberately undermining Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' condemnation of it.
In his presidential address to the General Synod yesterday, Williams described the Anti-Homosexuality Bill as "infamous" and "repugnant", adding: "The freedom that might be claimed by an African Anglican to support anti-gay legislation...has a serious impact on the credibility of the gospel in our setting."
But his call for a change of heart by the Ugandan church and an end to its "vicious polemic and stony-faced litigation" was almost immediately challenged by the publication of a statement by Orombi in which he insisted on its support for the bill.
"Homosexual practice has no place in God's design of creation, the continuation of the human race through procreation or His plan of redemption," Orombi said.
He added that the law should not allow homosexual practice as a human right and that "lesbianism, bestiality and other sexual perversions" should also be prohibited.
Last week Uganda's deputy foreign minister Henry Okello Oryem said he expected the Anti-Homosexuality Bill to be changed before it became law, which was widely seen as a signal that the death penalty for so-called "aggravated homosexuality" offences would be dropped.
But no mention has been made of the bill's other main provision of increasing the long-standing maximum punishment for male homosexuality of 14 years in prison to life imprisonment, or of its criminalisation of any public discussion of homosexuality, jail for people who touch each other in a "gay way" and penalties for those who rent property to homosexuals.
