Kill The Gays Bill: Uganda Expert Calls Out Journalists For False Reports Of Death Penalty Removal
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One of America’s top experts on Uganda‘s “Kill The Gays” bill, Box Turtle Bulletin‘s editor, Jim Burroway, is now calling out journalists by name for repeated false claims that Uganda has removed the death penalty from its infamous and draconian Anti-Homosexuality bill.
Since 2009, Ugandan Member of Parliament (MP) David Bahati, has been the face of the anti-gay legislation, and has used it as a vehicle to further his political career. Now, Rebecca Kadaga, Speaker of the Ugandan Parliament, who is rumored to have a desire for the presidency of Uganda, is following in his footsteps, promising the Kill The Gays bill will pass before Christmas as a “Christmas gift” to Uganda’s Christians.
Almost every year since the “Bahati bill” was taken up in Parliament, the press has been told the death penalty has been dropped. And the mainstream media and many blogs have taken the word of politicians as fact, without any investigation or request of proof, offering the false claims as fact.
Today is the perfect example:
Uganda’s anti-gay bill won’t contain death penalty
By By [sic] RODNEY MUHUMUZA, Associated PressKAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — The Ugandan lawmaker who originally authored an anti-gay bill proposing death for some homosexual acts said Friday that a new version of the proposed legislation doesn’t contain the death penalty.
Parliamentarian David Bahati said the bill, which is expected to be voted on next month, had “moved away from the death penalty after considering all the issues that have been raised.”
“There is no death penalty,” he told The Associated Press.
First, as a source at the State Department noted to the Washington Blade, the bill cannot be changed in committee, so the death penalty cannot have been removed.
Second, why has almost every major media outlet never questioned their own previous reporting, when they “report” that the death penalty has been removed — again? Why do they never question when it was put back in, in order for it to be removed again? And again, and again?
This is plain and simple laziness, and the mainstream media outlets like the ones Jim Burroway names today — we’ll excerpt a few below — deserve to be lambasted for falsely reporting what is in reality a life or death situation. Frankly, to my memory, the BBC and the AP are the worst violators, and their readers should sue them for journalistic malpractice.
At least in America, the press — the only industry mentioned in the constitution — is given great legal leeway, in order to be able to report the truth. When they fail at that endeavor, they deserve the utmost enmity from their readers. When it’s the corporate multi-million dollar media — who this year were given a financial windfall with all the political ads they sold — they deserve to have to pay for their poor judgment.
Meanwhile, Burroway today writes:
And because its the AP, the lie that has been heard at least fifteen times around the world over the past three years is embarking on yet another world tour, first in the New York Times, Washington Post and Fox, and from there to local news outlets. LGBT outlets and blogs — all of which have no excuse for not knowing better — are picking it up, including Queerty and Pink News. Even Huffington Post has jumped on board to turn its erstwhile progressive pages over to Bahati’s publicist.
Burroway adds:
What short memory spans everyone has. It was just last week when the BBC  – per its usual jumping-the-gun instinct – announced that the decision to drop the death penalty was a done deal. In case you’re counting, that’s at least the third time the BBC announced the death penalty’s demise, and its third announcement proved just as wrong as the earlier two. So when an unnamed source at the U.S. Embassy in Kampala confirmed to the Washington Blade that:
…the committee can only compile a report on the bill for recommendations to the bill, and can’t make changes to it. That means the panel can’t take out the death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality,†which media sources reported was removed.
… — which is what we’ve been saying – Queerty was over there wondering how the death penalty ever got “put back in.â€
But as we’ve said repeatedly, it has never been removed. And we will never tell you that it has been removed until and unless, you know, it has been removed – which has never happened in the bill’s entire three year history. Although the bill’s supporters have done their best to try to convince you otherwise.
Read Burroway’s post today, “AP Is Wrong: Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill Still Has The Death Penalty,” for a lot more on this shameful event in journalism, and for more on what’s actually going on with Uganda’s Kill The Gays bill.
Burroway, for the record, is no fly-by-night blogger. He was honored this summer with honored with a National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association Award for “Excellence in Online Journalism,” and his work has appeared on CNN, and in The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and has been quoted by likely every LGBT news site and major blog.
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Related:
Fischer: ‘There Is No Kill The Gays Bill In Uganda — Doesn’t Exist’
Ugandan Activists: Kill The Gays Bill Still Contains Death Penalty
On Uganda, HRC Attacks Tony Perkins, Ties Osteen And Warren To Lawmakers
US Official’s Comments Suggest Death Penalty Not Removed From Uganda Kill The Gays Bill
Human Rights Group Asks Obama To Help Stop Uganda’s Kill The Gays Bill
US State Dept Cautions Uganda To ‘Look Very Carefully’ At Kill The Gays Bill
Tony Perkins: Uganda President ‘Leading His Nation’ With ‘Kill The Gays’ Bill
Scott Lively: Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill’s Expected Passage A ‘Huge Blessing’
American Family Association Leader Praises Uganda Anti-Homosexuality 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
