NOM Chairman Teams Up With FRC, Announces He Hopes Uganda Reinstates Life Imprisonment For Gays

Watch as NOM Chairman John Eastman denounces America’s international efforts to protect LGBT people, adding that he hopes Uganda reinstates its “Jail The Gays” law quickly.

National Organization For Marriage chairman John Eastman delivered an hour-long speech at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the Family Research Council on Wednesday, bemoaning the focus the Obama administration has placed on LGBT civil rights internationally.

Dr. Eastman, whose tenure at the helm of NOM has been marked by a horrific record in court, as well as being financially disastrous, spoke at the FRC event which was titled “Cultural Imperialism and the Obama Administration.”

In the video below, Eastman focuses on a memo created by USAID, the U.S. governmental agency responsible for administering foreign aid. Under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s leadership, LGBT civil rights gained a far greater focus, and Eastman offered examples of how the U.S. Government is working with foreign governments to help them deliver greater support and equality to their often persecuted LGBT citizens.

Dr. Eastman, of course, didn’t explain the USAID memo in quite in those terms.

For example, speaking about Uganda‘s “Kill the Gays” bill, which ultimately morphed into the “Jail the Gays” bill, Eastman lamented that the Obama administration and other governments around the world threatened to and pulled international funding to Uganda, simply because Uganda was following its Christian beliefs.

“Contrary to the way it was reported here in the United States,” Eastman said, the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality bill “provided life imprisonment for aggravated homosexuality, that is homosexual acts committed by somebody infected with HIV/AIDS, who knew that by conducting that act they knew they were very likely to give that deadly disease – death sentence – to their sex partners.”

“And homosexual acts with minors. And then prison for groups who counsel people into homosexuality. The Ugandan Supreme Court invalidated the law, but only on technical grounds that there had not been a quorum,” he explained.

“I suspect that it’s going to come back and I hope that it does come back in short order.”

Indeed, the law was struck down, but its impact, even before it went into effect, and after it was invalidated, was enormous, with LGBTQ people living in fear and even committing suicide rather than face a life of hell. 

Joe Jervis, who first reported on Eastman’s speech, observes that “Eastman fails to note that under the stricken-for-now Ugandan bill, ‘aggravated homosexuality’ is also defined as having been arrested on those charges more than once.”

The “Jail the Gays” legislation also put at risk anyone suspected of being LGBT, and even mandated jail time for heterosexual people who did not report LGBT people to the government. 

Eastman’s presumption, also, that HIV/AIDS is a disease that affects only LGBT people, too, is not only false but dangerous.

Last month, VICE reported on Uganda’s LGBT community and how they are treated: ‘I Kill Them!’: HBO’s VICE Goes To Uganda To See What American Anti-Gay Christians Have Created.

 

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Image: Screenshot via Family Research Council/YouTube