Uganda Drops Death Penalty, Life in Prison from Bill

[Trigger warning.]

This is good news in a still ongoingly-terrible situation:

Uganda will drop the death penalty and life imprisonment for gays in a refined version of an anti- gay bill expected to be ready for presentation to Parliament in two weeks, James Nsaba Buturo, the minister of ethics and integrity, said.

The draft bill, which is under consideration by a parliamentary committee, will drop the two punishments to attract the support of religious leaders who are opposed to these penalties, Buturo said today in a phone interview from the capital, Kampala.

Ugandan lawmaker David Bahati presented a private member's bill on Oct. 14 which sought the death penalty and life imprisonment for gay people in the country. The Ugandan government supports the bill because homosexuality and lesbianism are "repugnant to the Ugandan culture," Buturo said. Still, it favors a more refined set of punishments, he said.

In addition to formulating punishments for the gay people, the bill will also promote counseling to help "attract errant people to acceptable sexual orientation," said Buturo.

For what I'm going to assume are obvious reasons among this crowd, this "compromise" is still totally unacceptable.

Keep up the pressure. Ugandan foreign missions, embassies and consulates here. Contact the US State Department here. Sample letters here.

[Previously: Anti-Gay Legislation in Uganda, Anti-Gay Legislation in Uganda Sponsored by The Family, Quote of the Day, World AIDS Day.]