Heartsick at the news from Uganda

Stephen Harper slams Uganda on anti-gay bill
Harper told reporters he met privately with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni during the Commonwealth leaders’ summit to express “Canada’s deep concern and strong opposition to the bill.”

“We deplore these kinds of measures,” Harper said. “We find them inconsistent with any reasonable understanding of human rights.”

Why is Uganda attacking homosexuality?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* Human rights groups: Bill would spur a witch hunt of homosexuals in Uganda
* President blames foreign influence in promoting and funding homosexuality
* Media outlets have inflamed sentiments by publicly pointing out gays and lesbians
* Canadian PM tells Ugandan president bill is deplorable, inconsistent with human rights

If Uganda Executes Gays, Will American Christians be Complicit?

..."American Christians who help sow such sentiments may be held liable -- at least morally -- for the results. A Nov. 18 report, "Globalizing the Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, and Homophobia," from the liberal think tank Political Research Associates (PRA), documents how extensive -- and influential -- those contacts are.

"Just as the United States and other northern societies routinely dump our outlawed or expired chemicals, pharmaceuticals, machinery, and cultural detritus on African and other Third World countries, we now export a political discourse and public policies our own society has discarded as outdated and dangerous," Tarso Luís Ramos, head of the PRA, says in the foreword to the report. "Africa's anti-gay campaigns are to a substantial degree made in the U.S.A."

Whether those campaigns will succeed is still an open question. Despite wide support for the bill in parliament, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni may seek to stall the legislation for fear of losing international support.

But many Ugandan church leaders have also signaled their support for the broader bill if the death-penalty provision is removed. "I think the death penalty is not acceptable," Anglican Bishop Stanley Ntagali of Masindi-Kitara diocese has said. "I think taking someone to jail for a period of time would be sufficient."

With an estimated 500,000 gays and lesbians among Uganda's 31 million residents, they better start building prisons fast."

What to do, what to do?

Here are links to two petitions where you can add your voice against this bill:
Christian leaders must condemn Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Rick Warren: Please Denounce Anti-Gay Bill in Uganda

For help for myself...
well, some days the news makes it difficult to call myself a Christian... and one of my Jewish heroes, Rabbi Rami, always manages to put me back on track just when I need help the most.

This manifesto was written by Rabbi Rami Shapiro (author of many books including 'The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness')

"An Open Letter to Peoples of Faith
WE BELIEVE God transcends theology; that no idea about God can adequately encompass the reality of God.
WE BELIEVE that revelation is not given to a people, but through a people to the world.
WE BELIEVE that the truth in each scripture is common to all scriptures, calling us toward justice, compassion, humility, dignity, respect, love for both person and planet, and the transcending of self through service to others.
WE RECOGNIZE that filtering divine revelation through human hands allows fear, greed, anger, ignorance, and violence to masquerade as truth.
WE RECOGNIZE that much if not most of the evil plaguing our world is rooted in this masquerade, and the violent image of god that comes from it.
WE COMMIT ourselves to ending this evil by rejecting religious violence and the false god who sanctions it.
WE COMMIT ourselves to separating timeless truth from time bound bias in our respective scriptures; affirming the former and moving beyond the latter.
WE COMMIT ourselves to teaching the God of justice, compassion, love, and respect Who speaks to us through all scriptures, and Who calls us to free ourselves from fear, greed, anger, ignorance, and violence.
WE CALL upon peoples of every faith to liberate the wisdom of God from the xenophobia of tribe and ego, and to free religion from fear and violence by distinguishing the holy from the merely sacred.
WE CALL upon peoples of every faith to share their wisdom with the world, to fearlessly speak out when their faith is kidnapped by evil, and to remind us all that there is no god but God, and that justice and compassion are the way of God for all time and for all people."

To participate in this project please copy
this manifesto and pass it on.

-jan-