Kill the Bill, Not the Gays
On September 7th, 2011, Uganda’s Parliament in Kampala will once again consider enacting Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality bill – aka the “Kill the Gays†legislation – a draconian bill that further criminalizes homosexuality by imposing the death penalty on anyone previously convicted of homosexuality, is HIV-positive or engages in sexual acts with people of the same sex.
The bill was first introduced on October 2009 when Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill was shelved in 2010 after global condemnation — particularly Western countries — forced President Yoweri Museveni to form a commission to investigate the implications of its passage.
The bill was authored by Ugandan politician and MP in the Ugandan parliament, David Bahati. Bahati’s connection to The Family, a highly secretive fellowship of influential Christian politicians, is well documented, and their influence on the rabidly antigay sentiment in Uganda is difficult to ignore. The bill was introduced following a two-day conference in which American Christians warned that homosexuality posed a “direct threat†to African families.
Last night I was among a group of activists who met informally with Ugandan Anglican Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, his wife Mary and Rev. Canon Albert Ogle, President of St. Paul’s Foundation for International Reconciliation, to strategize on increasing awareness of Uganda’s rejection of human rights and the extent to which it threatens her democracy.
Bishop Senyonjo, an outspoken critic of Uganda’s antigay record and continued human rights violations is on a worldwide campaign urging European governments and other leaders to take concrete steps to end the criminalization of homosexuality worldwide. His education and HIV prevention programs targeted toward GLBT citizens in Uganda are illegal. The 78-year old Bishop’s compassion resulted in him being expelled from the Church of Uganda.
Assistant Secretary of the US Department of State, Johnnie Carson, was Ambassador to Uganda from 1991 to 1994. We need Secretary Carson – before September 7th, 2011 — to speak out loudly and publicly to Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, head of state and head of the Ugandan government, to strongly encourage him to permanently shelve the “Kill the Gays” legislation. The United States will not support draconian legislation, which was withdrawn in the wake of global condemnation, which threatens Ugandan democracy and curtails the most basic civil liberties of not only GLBT Ugandan citizens, but anyone who knows or associates with them too.
In a social media age, where you receive an invitation to participate in something or other every two minutes, if there’s one thing you do this Labor Day weekend and the days following, make it be a letter, fax, phone call or email to Secretary Carson. A sample letter, along with his contact information follows. Please copy/paste it and send it off. There is something you can do about this, and for many Ugandans, this is a matter of life or death.
Email: CarsonJ@state.gov
Fax: 1-202-647-6301
Phone: 1-202-647-4440
Assistant Secretary Johnnie Carson
BUREAU OF AFRICAN AFFAIRS
United States Department of State
RE: Draconian bill threatens Ugandan democracy
Dear Secretary Carson,
I am writing with urgency to ask you to forcefully and unequivocally speak out against the draconian bill expected to be considered by Ugandan Parliament on September 7, 2011.
The bill — frequently referred to and condemned globally as the “Kill the Gays†bill — would allow the death penalty for anyone who has any previous conviction of homosexuality, is HIV-positive or engages in sexual acts with people of the same sex.
This horrific legislation threatens the most basic civil liberties of not only GLBT Ugandan citizens, but anyone who knows or associates with them too.
As Ambassador to Uganda from 1991 -1994, you must have met many Ugandans, and have more of a vested interest in their well-being than most. This bill threatens the very tenets of democracy and will set a devastating example in surrounding regions.
The Centers for Disease Control presented you with its highest award, “Champion of Prevention Award,” for your leadership in directing the U.S. Government’s HIV/AIDS prevention efforts in Kenya. I urge you take that mantel one step further and raise your voice loudly enough and urgently enough to make a difference.
The very lives of many Ugandans who want only to live their lives free from harassment, violence and death, hangs in the balance.
Sincerely yours,
Clinton Fein is an internationally acclaimed author, artist, and First Amendment activist, best-​known for his 1997 First Amendment Supreme Court victory against United States Attorney General Janet Reno. Fein has also gained international recognition for his Annoy​.com site, and for his work as a political artist. Fein is on the Board of Directors of the First Amendment Project, “a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to protecting and promoting freedom of information, expression, and petition.†Fein’s political and privacy activism have been widely covered around the world. His work also led him to be nominated for a 2001 PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award.
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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
