President Yoweri Museveni respects science and scientists. He often exercises admirable patience before making evidence-based decisions. It is my hope that he will exercise the same patience and insistence on solid evidence before assenting to an amended Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
The amended Bill will not be substantially different from the original one. Uganda’s Parliament is about to re-criminalize homosexuality and impose severe punishment on members of the LGBTQQIP2SA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Pansexual, Two-Spirited, and Asexual) community. In doing so, it will be in concert with most Ugandan citizens.
However, parliament and the president should base whatever decision they make on verifiable scientific evidence from Uganda, and from other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, derived from solid research by African scholars that has passed peer review. This is key because people who believe that homosexuality is a European and North American trait may not be willing to base their decisions on research and other scientific observations from those foreign lands.
What is the prevalence of homosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality, transgendered and other non-traditional identities in contemporary Uganda and Sub-Saharan Africa? Are there any distinguishable differences among Africans who claim different sexual identities? What are the causes of homosexuality and other non-heterosexual identities and practices in Uganda? What is the history of homosexuality in Uganda and the rest of Africa? These are some of the questions that invite thorough scientific inquiry. The answers would advance knowledge, buttress the arguments of the two sides of the debate, and help legislators and the president make rational decisions on this very consequential piece of legislation. To be sure, the studies would add to global knowledge on this complex subject.
An interesting question is how much recruiting into homosexuality, if any, is going on in schools and communities in Uganda. This is a very legitimate concern that has caused understandable distress to parents and other citizens. Are people being recruited into a homosexual lifestyle or are homosexual people being recruited into overtly homosexual clubs? Is it recruiting or is it motivating homosexuals to “come out of the closet”? Obviously, I do not know the answers to these questions.
I suspect that many, perhaps most of those who claim this to be going on are depending on hearsay. This is not to say that “recruitment” is not going on. However, without verifiable data on the question, we are operating in a fact-free darkness that may be akin to past phenomena like Embalasasa, the imaginary reptile that terrorized Kampala in 1970, and “Ekikatu”, the alleged epidemic of uninvited lethal injections that had parts of Uganda on tenterhooks in the 1990s.
All this to say that President Museveni and parliament should allocate sufficient funds to university researchers to establish the realities about human gender identity and sexuality in Uganda before making consequential legal decisions. A finding that the phenomena are not native to Uganda would be of vital interest to the international community, especially those who do research or provide clinical and other professional support to members of the LGBTQQIP2SA community.
While we await Ugandan data, I urge Ugandan church leaders, journalists, parliamentarians, and the president to look at some of the published literature on this subject. Accessible world class journals online make it easy for Parliament and State House to get current evidence. I would, of course, be very happy to share references with our leaders who may not have the time to do a literature search.
An article by J. Michael Bailey, Paul L. Vasey, Lisa M. Diamond, S. Marc Breedlove, Eric Vilain, and Marc Epprecht, which was triggered by President Museveni’s call ten years ago for scientific evidence about the causes of homosexuality, should be of special interest to all who seek to debate this subject with informed views. Published in 2016 in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, the article, titled “Sexual Orientation, Controversy, and Science”, summarises scientific findings about sexual orientation, analyses the historical, social, and political considerations in the debate about homosexuality, and analyses the potential effects of the policy changes regarding homosexuality in Uganda.
The authors of this well written 79-page article, described themselves: “Collectively, we are well positioned to write such an article, given that the five first authors conduct complementary programs of research that inform on the science of sexual orientation and the last author has published extensively on nonheterosexuality in Africa.”
Another landmark article, written by Professor Christopher C. Cook of the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University in the United Kingdom, reviews the causes of human sexual orientation and offers a theological treatment of this complex subject. Published in 2021 in the journalTheology & Sexuality,27:1, “Given the complexity of the issue, it would be foolish to try to reduce it all to any single underlying question. However, insofar as science gives us information about how things are observed to be, and theology seeks to understand everything in divine context, it might be said that at least one of the fundamental theological questions is about the extent to which people should be accepted “as they are”. We might well debate the moral choices that people make within the context of how things are, and the extent to which Jesus did or did not expect people to change before offering them healing and forgiveness, but we should not ignore the evidence before us. Sexual orientation has significant biological and non-social environmental causes which profoundly impact on our experience of ourselves and one another as sexual creatures.”
Meanwhile, may I interest Ugandan legislators in a landmark decision in Singapore, everybody’s favourite ex-British colony that holds the trophy for intolerance of crime and untraditional behaviour? On November 29, 2022, Singapore’s parliament repealed Section 377A of the Penal Code that had criminalized consensual sex between adult males since 1938.
Having been assented by the Singaporean president on December 27, 2022, the bill repealing that law was gazetted on January 3, 2023. At the same time, Singapore entrenched the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. I am confident that the Singaporeans were not pressurized to take this action by any “imperialist” powers.
Reacting to the repeal of this law, Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister of Singapore, wrote: “Taken together, these are balanced, wise steps forward. Even more important, we have got here together – calmly, with all sides showing restraint, listening to one another, and accepting compromises to achieve a good result. This is a deeply felt and sensitive issue and could easily have become a very divisive one. But we have not allowed it to divide us. Instead, we have handled it responsibly and thoughtfully, and held everyone together. This is a major achievement.”
Are we Ugandans not able to handle this matter with similar calmness and civility, guided by evidence, not emotions and fear? I think we can. We should.
© Muniini K. Mulera