The Vivid Air

He’s a gay guy from perhaps the most homophobic country in the world—Jamaica—and he won an award named after the slain activist from a country that could also be the most homophobic country in the world—Uganda.

Well, Jamaica is in the news lately, since a transgendered teen, Dwayne Jones, was shot, stabbed, beaten and then run over by a car last weekend. Right—that’s pretty homophobic. But what’s even worse is that Jones’ father had driven him from the family home, and joined the group of neighbors who drove him from the neighborhood.

So he was living, this 16-year old kid, with three others in a derelict house in Montego Bay. He went to a party, was dancing, and someone noticed his feet, which were abnormally large for a woman’s. He tried to run; he didn’t get away.

What’s behind the persecution? Well, there’s a law dating from 150 years back banning sodomy. There was a tradition in colonial times of sodomizing black slaves as a form of punishment. There are the usual right-wing fundamentalists who have whipped up the masses in places like Uganda—remember Scott Lively? But Jamaica has found a native ingredient to toss into the usual stew—and that’s hate-mongering reggae singers.

Things are so bad for gay people in Jamaica that a lot of them are fleeing—or trying to. That’s what Maurice Tomlinson did when a local newspaper outed him; he immediately began receiving death threats. So he escaped to Canada, where he married his soul mate, Tom Decker.

“In Canada I have a husband, in Jamaica I have a good friend,” he said recently, when he also revealed that he’s had three death threats since the local Jamaican press published the news. So he no longer goes to bars or even parties—he’s under a modified, self-imposed house arrest.

The good news is that he won in 2012 the David Kato Vision and Voice Award. And that has given him, he says, a place at the table; with that, and the support of his organization…well, let him tell the story:

I was able to be a part of the first ever legal challenge to the Jamaican anti-sodomy law before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, successfully challenged Coca-Cola for their support of homophobic murder musicians in Jamaica, launched a constitutional claim against Jamaican television stations for their refusal to air a tolerance-themed ad in which I appear, confronted the government of Trinidad about its atrocious immigration law that bans the entry of marginalized groups such as the disabled, homosexuals and sex workers, and also traveled the world to share with other LGBT advocacy groups the hard-won skills I developed as an activist. It was also AIDS-Free World that nominated me for the David Kato Vision and Voice award. I simply could not have achieved my advocacy successes without them by my side. So I publicly thank AIDS-Free World and hope my successor has an equally supportive organization or group to call 'home.'

So who, you might ask, is David Kato?

Kato was the first openly gay Ugandan, a teacher, a man who had lived for six years in South Africa, which was more liberal. Returning to Uganda, Kato made the decision to come out, did so at a press conference, and got jailed for a week because of it. This, however, didn’t stop him—he went on to become one of the founding members of SMUG—Sexual Minorities Uganda. In 2010, he gave up teaching, and worked full time as an activist.

But the year before, he had attended a UN human rights conference. Here’s Wikipedia on the subject:

According to a series of confidential cables written by a Kampala-based United States diplomat and later released by WikiLeaks, Kato spoke during a November 2009 United Nations-funded consultative conference on human rights. During the conference, Kato spoke on the issue of LGBT rights and the anti-LGBT atmosphere in the country, but members of the Uganda Human Rights Commission "openly joked and snickered" during the speech, and a rumor circulated that David Bahati MP, the leading proponent of the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill, had ordered the Inspector General of Police to arrest Kato, causing Kato and other attending members of SMUG to leave the conference immediately after he finished the speech. Bahati then made a "tirade against homosexuality" to the conference, resulting in massive applause and Martin Ssempa, an Evangelical Christian cleric, pounding his fist on the table in agreement.[7]

And then, a local newspaper published his name and address—as they did of a hundred other persons—in an inflammatory campaign to out gay people. (How inflammatory? If memory serves, one of the banners read, “HANG THEM!)

Kato took the newspaper to court—he won, and got a $600 settlement.

He never got to enjoy that 600 bucks; he was murdered shortly afterwards. But even after death, the insults continued. Back to Wikipedia for a description of the event:

Kato's funeral was held on January 28, 2011, in Nakawala. Present at the funeral were family, friends and co-activists, many of whom wore t-shirts bearing his photo in front, the Portuguese "la [sic] luta continua" in the back and having rainbow flag colors inscribed onto the sleeves.[19] However, the Christian preacher at the funeral preached against the gays and lesbians present, making comparisons to Sodom and Gomorrah, before the activists ran to the pulpit and grabbed the microphone from him, forcing him to retreat from the pulpit to Kato's father's house. An unidentified female activist angrily exclaimed "Who are you to judge others?" and villagers sided with the preacher as scuffles broke out during the proceedings. Villagers refused to bury Kato at his burial place; the task was then undertaken by his friends and co-workers, most of whom were gay.[20] In place of the preacher who left the scene after the fighting, excommunicated Anglican Church of Uganda bishop Christopher Ssenyonjo officiated Kato's burial in the presence of friends and cameras.

Right—that’s one you’d remember!

And who, by the way, is excommunicated Bishop Christopher Ssenyonjo, and why is he excommunicated?

Well, he’s a theologian who studied at Union Theological Seminary and was ordained at St. John the Divine. He’s an LGBT activist who got into a scrap with the archbishop, who turned around and excommunicated him.

 Homosexuality is illegal in more than 70 countries, but that’s the least of the problem. What’s truly scary is that there are places in the world—Russia, Jamaica, Uganda—where LGBT people live very realistically in fear for their lives. And there are people like David Kato and Maurice Tomlinson who—against all odds, despite the churning stomachs, the sweaty palms, the dry mouths—find the courage to stand up, speak out, tell the truth to power.

Women and men who leave the vivid air, as the poet said, signed with their honor.

Oh Yeah?

Readers of this blog will know about Doug Coe—the secretive force behind the National Prayer Breakfast.

Oh, and much more.

He makes no bones about it, though he doesn’t say much—really anything—publicly. He, and his group The Family (also called The Fellowship) minister exclusively to the rich and (especially) politically powerful. They form “cells” around congressmen and women, Coe can enter virtually any office and be received with hugs. Face time with the president? No problem! (At least with W.—don’t know about Obama….)

And he has a curious tendency to invoke Hitler as a supreme leader—a man with consummate rhetorical skills (can’t be denied….), a man with a gift for organization (true), and especially a man who starts with a handful of men and almost changes the world permanently (can’t dispute that). 

Now then, let’s move to Uganda.

Say what, you exclaim!

Bear with me.

There is in Uganda a transgendered man who is fighting—against horrific odds—against virulent homophobia. How virulent, you ask? Consider this:

Or this quote from Pepe Julian Onziema, the man adduced above:

I am here, still, in 2013, but I dread things as simple as shopping at a kiosk for groceries, because the owner has told me he doesn't sell to "such people." If I insist, he said, he will "teach me how to be normal." A full night's sleep is thwarted by the fear of a stranger who has followed me home or the neighbors who have formed a mob. My personal struggle is a small reflection of the entire LGBTI community's everyday apprehension.

That’s from an article in CNN entitled “Living Proudly in the Face of Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill.” Here’s Onziema on the topic:

Since 2009, my community has faced the potential passage of an anti-homosexuality bill that threatens Ugandans in same-sex relationships with life imprisonment (there are conflicting reports on whether the original death penalty provision remain). This year, many Anglican Church officials and other leaders have declared the legislation's speedy passage as their New Year's resolutions, with the bill scheduled for discussion when Uganda's parliament reconvenes in February. As a transgender man, I am not safe.

I knew about this, of course, and signed an online petition against it. So did a lot of people. But the click of a mouse is a minor thing, a few minute muscles flexing, a little electronic blip going out into the world. The Ugandans may pass the bill. Onziema may end up as dead as his partner David Kato, with whom he founded SMUG—Sexual Minorities Uganda. This is the second anniversary of Kato’s…

…murder.

This would scare the bejesus out of me. How do you get that courage, that strength, to live with the constant fear of everything? A Cuban friend told me once a very simple definition of a free society. You’re in bed at two o’clock in the morning; you hear footsteps on the pavement outside your house. You yawn and go back to sleep.

That’s a free society.

Your body tenses, you sweat, you know you should run but are paralyzed.

Police state.

Well, the guy is still fighting, and still has hope. And one glimmer of hope is thrown lightly into a paragraph:

And I hope to win a U.S. lawsuit against American evangelist Scott Lively for the anti-gay terror he exported to my country.

Well, that rang a bell. We’re back to Doug Coe and The Fellowship, whose influence goes far and wide, into the little countries that no one knows about or cares about, or even knows where they are. But some of those places have minerals or other resources, and maybe even a little domestic strife, in which case a nice little weapons deal can be brokered with the (for now) leader who is, by the way, your brother in Christ. Oh, and want to sit at the president’s table for the National Prayer Breakfast? No problem!

And in fact, I knew that a group of Coe’s “fellows” had ventured down to Uganda, to talk about that ole devil, the gay menace!

Click, and I’m on Wikipedia reading up on Scott Lively. And it seems he is lively in several senses (you could see that on the horizon, couldn’t you?). I joke, but it’s not funny. Lively and company arrive in Kampala in 2009, and here’s his account.

"Thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians," reportedly attended the conference.[4] Lively and his colleagues "discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and 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.'"[4] Lively wrote days later that "someone had likened their campaign to 'a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.'"[4]

Nothing like thumping the Bible to stir up a little hate! And the guy is an author too (as well, by the way, as an abuser of women—he assaulted a woman in 1991, she sued, he got stuck for 31,000 bucks)!

You can guess the topic. But the title?

The Pink Swastika.

Here’s Wikipedia again:

Along with Kevin E. Abrams, he co-authored the book The Pink Swastika, which states in the preface that "homosexuals [are] the true inventors of Nazism and the guiding force behind many Nazi atrocities."[5] Several historians have questioned the book's claims and selective use of research.[6][7][8][9][10]

“Several” historians? Is there ANY historian—who doesn’t happen to be a religious nut case—who could possibly NOT question the book’s claims?

I take a pill that reliably wakes me up in the middle of the night with a craving for food. (OK—carbohydrates…) That gives me time to look into the crannies of the Internet, the places I ordinarily wouldn’t go. So I found myself spending time last night with Ruth Maier, often deemed the Norwegian Anne Frank.

An Austrian from a cultured family (father had a doctorate in philosophy and spoke nine languages), Ruth escapes to Norway, her sister—more luckily—makes it to Britain.

The footsteps on the pavement outside, one night, became her worst fear. She was deported to Auschwitz and gassed immediately.

And yes, she left behind a diary—one critic compares her writing to Hannah Arendt and Susan Sontag (wow!) And she had, it seems, a passionate affair with her soul mate—a woman called Gunvor Hofmo. They were, if my 2AM reading serves me, lovers.

Well, the Norwegian government apologized, almost exactly a year ago. Here’s more copy / paste from you-know-what….

The Holocaust came to Norway on Thursday 26 November 1942. Ruth Maier was one of the many who were arrested that day. On 26 November, just as the sky was beginning to lighten, the sound of heavy boots could be heard on the stairs of the boarding house “Englehjemmet” in Oslo. A few minutes later, the slight Jewish girl was seen by her friends being led out the door of Dalsbergstien 3. Ruth Maier was last seen being forced into a black truck by two big Norwegian policemen. Five days later the 22-year-old was dead. Murdered in the gas chamber at Auschwitz. Fortunately it is part of being human that we learn from our mistakes. And it is never too late. More than 50 years after the war ended, the Storting decided to make a settlement, collectively and individually, for the economic liquidation of Jewish assets. By so doing the state accepted moral responsibility for the crimes committed against Norwegian Jews during the Second World War. What about the crimes against Ruth Maier and the other Jews? The murders were unquestionably carried out by the Nazis. But it was Norwegians who carried out the arrests. It was Norwegians who drove the trucks. And it happened in Norway.

—Jens Stoltenberg, prime minister, 27 January 2012

There were 532 Jews deported that day.

An apology is an empty thing unless it gets backed up by something. Actually, an apology is a debt, an obligation to change, for which you will pay and struggle until the change is complete.

Half a million homosexuals were exterminated in the Holocaust. An American writes a slanderous book, piling blame on the victims. The Anglican Church of Uganda wants to rewrite and relive history.

To my knowledge, I haven’t played a part in any atrocity.

But anybody who doesn’t speak up is complicit.

I’ll borrow some words from the woman who gave me as much moral compass as I have.

“SCOTT LIVELY, GO STRAIGHT TO YOUR ROOM AND DON’T COME OUT UNTIL YOU’RE GOOD AND SORRY!”