It has been flung around all corners of the press over the last few months. The latest in a series of articles on the Guardian focuses on a pastor that screened same sex pornography in church in order to build further support for the bill. Uganda was a country that was practically and systematically tackling HIV/AIDs until the conservative evangelical’s put an end to a decades work. Now they seem to be turning their attention elsewhere.
In 2007 I spent three months in Uganda with YWAM. Some of that time was spent in Kampala including some time with Martin Ssempa and his church (MCC). He’s a highly charismatic and convincing speaker that could sell second hand condoms if he set his mind to it. Amongst other things he hosts Prime Time at the swimming pool at Kampala’s main university campus - a Saturday evening program of entertainment that seemingly holds a monopoly over any other events and enthusiastically promotes sexual abstinence. At the time I was onboard the conservative evangelical train, before my carriage violently derailed towards the end of my YWAM experience at Media Village in Cape Town. I agreed with their ideal of sexual abstinence being the way of preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS - although even then I had a niggling feeling that the real world wasn’t ideal.
Martin Ssempa is the pastor that showed gay porn in his church.
Uganda has an interesting and unusual position in the HIV/AIDS story as the prevalence rate declined dramatically in the late 1990’s. This success is normally attributed to the widespread and effective implementation of the ABC approach (Abstinence, Be faithful & Condom use). Until 2003, ABC programs were widespread in the country. Condoms were made widely available, as was training in their use. In the years up to 2003, HIV/AIDS prevalence dropped from 15% to 6%.
During 2003 the USA made an unprecedented pledge of money towards the reduction of HIV and AIDS called PEPFAR. They pledged billions of dollars with one caveat - at least $665m (a third) was ring fenced to be used on “abstinence until marriage” programs, condoms cannot be promoted or advertised. The caveat was added by conservative Christian politicians.
Uganda was one of the countries that started to use this money and very quickly removed condom programs, replacing them with the AB approach instead. Since 2003 the prevalence rate looks like it has started to increase again, at best it has reached a plateau. Widespread criticism of the new programs exist. There is an uncomfortably large void between the ideal of not promoting sex before marriage and the reality of human urges and the spread of HIV and AIDS.
Media Village productions were unfortunate in being sucked into this, producing a documentary that celebrated the success of the abstinence programs run by Martin Ssemba and others in Uganda. Frustratingly, the US is the main audience for their documentaries: acting as an ironic feedback loop for the US to back similar programs going forward. Whilst the MVP documentary doesn’t appear to be available online, have a look at Abstaining from Reality which portrays the post PEPFAR story.
It seems that many of the same organisations are now supporting the bill going through the Ugandan parliament at the moment. Whilst Martin Ssemba and the groups he represents are against the death penalty, they clearly understand homosexuality to be something that is treatable and curable. They also state that one reason for the bill is to prevent further spread of HIV and AIDS. I find the latter to be particularly ironic given his enthusiasm for encouraging abstinence in place of educating about condoms. His response to a letter from Rick Warren is quite enlightening, albeit rather undermined by the arrogant demand for an apology at the end.
In some ways it reminds me of the complete belief that earthquakes were punishment from God. It was only some years after the great earthquake in Lisbon (most people were in churches which collapsed) that people became less sure of this explanation. Similarly it was only a few decades ago that the UK thought that homosexuality was curable - it may well be a few more before Uganda catches up by the looks of things. I happen to think that a small minority of homosexuals may well be oriented as such due to trauma of some kind when they were young. Maybe they really could benefit from counselling. I expect there are a similar number of practising heterosexuals that could be gay (that’s a more frequently documented reality, right?).
I still don’t agree with the bill though.