Death Penalty For Being Gay: Uganda Kill The Gays Bill Soon To Be Law?
Editor’s note: For the most up-to-date news on Uganda’s Kill The Gays bill, visit our Uganda section.
Uganda’s infamous “Kill The Gays” bill, which would provide the death penalty for the “crime” of being gay, is about to become law, based upon current reports and the surrounding political situation in the staunchly conservative and Christian East African country. The bill has been debated in the Uganda Parliament for the past two days, and may come to a vote in the next 24 hours, which is when the current session of Parliament concludes.
READ: Uganda Kill The Gays Leader: “Homosexuality Is Killing Our Society”
The bill is being seen by many in the western media as a diversionary tactic for a government attempting to regain control amidst an increasingly angry and rioting population — one that is extremely homophobic and anti-gay, thanks in large part to American Evangelical groups, including The Family, that have infiltrated the country of 32 million people, 84% of whom are Christian.
Despite reports that the AHB’s author David Bahati has “conceded” to removing the death penalty from the bill, it remains in the bill’s current form. A surprise move calling for removal of the death penalty provisiuon by Bahati’s partner in the bill’s advocacy, Pastor Martin Ssempa, may have served to allay some concerns, but both Bahati’s and Ssempa’s moves may be chalked up to little more than grandstanding. What counts is what’s actually in the bill when it comes to a vote, most likely within the next 24 hours.
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Contact:
His Excellency Professor Perezi K. Kamunanwire
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Tel: (202) 726 4758
Fax: (202) 726 1727
[email protected]
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Ssempa on Monday told lawmakers — members of the Uganda Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee – “The parliament should be given the opportunity to discuss and pass the bill, because homosexuality is killing our society.â€
Uganda ranks number 143 of 169 countries in the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Index, which examines a combination of health, education, and living standards. Uganda is also considered to have a high number of people who are illiterate, especially women. All these factors lead to a population easily indoctrinated into religious extremism.
Currently, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (AHB) is listed in a Uganda Parliament publication under “business to follow,” which could mean it will come to a vote shortly, as all reports indicate, or it could languish there until the next session of parliament begins.
READ: Uganda Kill The Gays Bill May Become Fast Tracked Into Law
“There are two ways to read this. The bill’s listed under ‘business to follow’ do not always come up for immediate consideration. I’ve watched some bills remain under this notice for weeks on end,” writes Box Turtle Bulletin’s Jim Burroway.
“On the other hand, Wednesday May 11 is a very significant day, and the vote can be an important diversion. Not only is it the last scheduled day of final scheduled session of the 8th Parliament, but it also happens to coincide with the day in which the opposition leader, Dr. Kizza Besigye, plans to return from Nairobi, Kenya, where he had been treated for injuries sustained when he was attacked by security forces during a peaceful protest.”
Burroway adds that “Parliament Speaker Edward Ssekandi is fighting to retain his position as Speaker in the next Parliament,” and suggests that “MP David Bahati, the sponsor of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, appears to be involved, either directly or behind the scenes, in the Speaker selection process. He may be using that leverage to force the speaker to fast-track the bill for a vote.”
And more bad news. Warren Throckmorton, who has been following the events very closely, writes today, “According to Stephen Tashobya [chairman of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee,] the bill is not really dead until May 18. If the Speaker wants to bring the Parliament together to consider the bill, he can do so, even after tomorrow. While that seems unlikely, it is possible. Also, the next Parliament begins the same day that the old one ends. There is nothing to prevent Bahati from bringing a version of the AHB back if he gets leave from Parliament to table another private member’s bill.”
“Ssempa and others … continue to claim homosexuality is imported from the West, is a threat to Ugandan children and needs to be legally stopped,†said Christopher Senyonjo, a Ugandan Bishop working to defeat the bill, according to a special report in SDGLN, which writes,
“Bishop Christopher said he is convinced that the bill will move forward to Parliament and if passed, it will be up to the president to veto it. International pressure from the U.S., the United Kingdom, the European Union and human rights organizations is intense, but Ugandans are being greatly influenced by anti-​gay American missionaries from the Religious Right and from the extremely conservative Anglican Church in Africa.â€
Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin reminds that even if the death penalty is withdrawn, “the bill would still remain a potent threat to human rights. The bill would lower the bar for conviction, making mere “touching†for the perceived purpose of homosexual relations a criminal offense. It threatens teachers, doctors, friends, and family members with three years imprisonment if they didn’t report anyone they suspected of being gay to police within twenty-​four hours. It also would broadly criminalize all advocacy of homosexuality including, conceivably, lawyers defending accused gay people in court or parliamentarians proposing changes to the law. It even threatens landlords under a “brothel†provision if they knowingly rent to gay people.â€
(Image: Pastor Martin Ssempa reportedly showing pornographic images to a group of people including minors.)
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His Excellency Professor Perezi K. Kamunanwire
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Tel: (202) 726 4758
Fax: (202) 726 1727
[email protected]
READ: Uganda Kill The Gays Bill May Become Fast Tracked Into Law
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
