Missionaries of Hate - The American Religious Right in Uganda

Guernica, For a New Century

What do the C-Street political Fundies in Washington, Scott Lively, Rick Warren, and a handful of other extreme-right evangelicals have in common?

They've quietly used Uganda as a testing-ground for their anti-gay, theocratic strategy and tactics.

Seems it's a lot easier to test them in impoverished countries without a sophisticated communication system and an entrenched non-religious population.

Consider the new anti-gay legislation proposed in the Ugandan parliament - which would, among other things, provide for the death penalty in cases of 'aggravated homosexuality' - a Guernica of sorts for the American religious right.

(Guernica, you'll remember, is where the Nazis tested their aviation technology on the Republicans in Spain during the Spanish Civil War.)

Instead of bombs and bombers, the Right is testing legislation, organization tactics, and indoctrination.   They're testing the means by which a legislative body can be subverted, and an entire group of that nation's citizens demonized, marginalized - and outlawed.

The following Vanguard documentary by Mariana van Zeller chronicles the descent of Uganda into the rampant homophobia and outright theocracy which only American 'evangelists' could impose:

(Be sure to check out the other three parts of "Missionaries of Hate" on Current.Com)

Remembering Kent State....

As a fifteen year old, I learned some heady things this day, forty years ago.

I'd already learned that the government could conscript us, give us a rifle, send us to a place where we had no business and no resolve to win - and get us killed for no good reason at all.

On this day in 1970, I learned that those of us who were fortunate enough to stay behind could also be killed by that same government if we objected strongly enough to be considered 'rioters' - a label placed on those of us with the temerity to step out of line enough to protest that government's actions.

I grew up fast on this day in 1970.