OBAMA, CLINTON BLAST UGANDAN ANTI-GAY EFFORT…. The Obama administration has been a staunch opponent of the anti-gay crusade underway in Uganda, but it was especially encouraging to see President Obama address the subject this morning.
President Barack Obama strongly criticized controversial anti-homosexuality legislation being considered by Uganda’s legislature during an appearance Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast.
The organization which sponsors the breakfast, the Fellowship Foundation, has been associated with efforts to pass the bill, according to the ethics group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
The measure would punish sexual activity between persons of the same sex with long jail terms or death.
It is “unconscionable to target gays or lesbians for who they are,” Obama said. The measure being considered in Uganda is “odious,” he added.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered this morning’s keynote address, and highlighted the administration’s human-rights efforts: “[W]e are also standing up for girls and women, who too often in the name of religion are denied basic human rights. And we are standing up for gays and lesbians, who deserve to be treated as full human beings. I recently called President [Yoweri] Museveni, who I have known through the prayer breakfast, and expressed the strongest concern about a law being considered in the parliament in Uganda.”
The prayer breakfast had been organized by The Family or The Fellowship, a conservative Christian outfit with members who support the anti-gay effort in Uganda. Given the audience, it gave Obama’s and Clinton’s comments an added sense of significance.
