Jerry Chasen's Blog

The Times had an article yesterday about Uganda considering making homosexual activity punishable by death.  American Role Seen in Uganda Anti-Gay Push.

Turns out some American Evangelicals traveled to Uganda, and spouted off some stories about “how ‘the gay movement is an evil institution’ whose goal is ‘to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.’”  This led directly to the current efforts in Uganda to make homosexual behavior a capital crime.  Still, as the article went on, these hatemongers don’t accept responsibility for the results of their actions.  And while the US and other countries are threatening to shun Uganda if it proceeds with this law, no real action is being taken vis a vis the impetus for the law, ie the evangelists.

I was reminded of it again, when reading Tom Friedman’s column in this morning’s Times.  He applauded the father of the would be Northwest Airlines terrorist, who had notified the American embassy in Nigeria that his son had become a fanatic and a possible terrorist.  He applauded this man for denouncing terror borne of fanaticism at home–even going so far as to warn authorities about his son.  He went on to say:

“Every faith has its violent extreme. The West is not immune. It’s all about how the center deals with it. Does it tolerate it, isolate it or shame it?”

I agree that it’s up to the Muslim center to deal with the extremists in its own society–I suspect that they’ll be far more effective than we’re being.  But in any event, our credibility would be far greater if America’s center dealt with the religious zealots in our own culture accordingly.  The crap that these evangelicals were spouting is probably even less true than the garbage that Muslim extremists spew about the evil America.  And at least the Muslims accept (indeed claim) responsibility for their actions.