While I never intended my blog to become a chapter of the Rachel Maddow fan club or a Sarah Palin bash fest, both women provide so much material, albeit for completely opposite reasons that you'll need to bear with me! Rachel covers many under-reported stories and behind closed door deals that our fellow Americans have no idea about because they'd rather watch The Biggest Loser and keep track of how many women Tiger Woods has had affairs with since his 2004 marriage. In my opinion, the following story is a big deal since the U.S. likes to pretend we're the most compassionate, open-minded country in the world. For the past week or so, The Rachel Maddow Show has been covering an abhorrent story from Uganda. Quite simply, they have proposed a bill to kill gay people and jail anyone who knows a gay person and didn't come forward to authorities before they found out elsewhere! Sweden has announced the good sense to cut aid to Uganda. The bill has been condemned by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Our government on the other hand, has remained silent. The infamous "C Street Church" members, who are elected U.S. politicians known as "The Family" are responsible in part for the action being taken by Uganda. For anyone unsure of the group, they're essentially a far reaching Christian Mafia. This past summer, they received a lot of unwelcome attention as TRMS helped expose their agenda with assistance from Harper Magazine's Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family, who had infiltrated and lived among them for a year. Another anti-gay American with close ties to Ugandans promoting the "kill gays" bill is Saddleback megachurch and CA Prop. 8 supporter Pastor Rick Warren. You remember him, he delivered the invocation at the inauguration of our "fierce advocate of gays and lesbians", who's done nothing yet about DADT or DOMA, but has found the time, energy and concern to fret over Republican whims, even though they will never support him on anything. Warren has also hosted many visits by Ugandan Pastor Martin Ssempa, one of the bill's leading advocates. Because of the views of these men, Uganda feels like they've got the green light to pursue this human rights violation. Our government's silence is deplorable and I really hope someone will have the courage to come forward before this becomes law.
For anyone who missed Rachel's show last night, she took on author Richard "ex-gay" Cohen who claims to cure "the gay". He and some of his "cured" Pray Away The Gay, friends who have written books and visited Uganda as "experts" are also knee deep in this disturbing bill. While it's clear that Rachel was personally offended by this guy, she never allows him to make this about her, though he tried on a couple occasions to lure her into discussing her "choice of the homosexual lifestyle." My favorite part of the interview is her stinging remark for which I named this article. At the end of the interview she rattles off a list of groups that have discredited him and let's everyone know "he is not licensed by any American or any other licensing body whatsoever.” After this interview, I'm not so sure there'll be additional printings of his books. Enjoy the smack down! 12/08/2009
If you'd like to watch more of Rachel's coverage, I've linked them below:
Uganda Be Killing Me - 12/07/2009
Uganda Be Killing Me - 12/04/2009
Uganda Be Killing Me - 12/03/2009
Uganda Be Killing Me - 12/02/2009
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