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Notes: Submitted by and name retained with permission of recipient. Original transmitted by email. For some context, see New York Times, 2011/01/28. Classified in UHJ Letters. |
Non-involvement of Baha'is in repression of homosexuality in Uganda
by Universal House of Justice
2010-12-22I read on the Internet that a law banning homosexuality was being debated in Uganda, a law which would impose imprisonment and even the death sentence for homosexual acts. Some religious groups were in support of this legislation, and according to the report on the Internet, the Bahá'í community sent a representative to an anti-homosexual gathering. At this gathering there were signs with hateful slogans and heinous depictions of death and dismemberment of homosexuals. The Bahá'ís of Uganda were portrayed as being fully in support of this, including support for the death penalty for homosexual acts. Reportedly, so the story went, the Universal House of Justice sent a Continental Counsellor to educate the Ugandan Bahá'ís.
I wrote to the Universal House of Justice to ask for the truth of the matter. The response was as follows.
Brent Poirier, January 2011
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THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE
DEPARTMENT OF THE SECRETARIAT
22 December 2010
Transmitted by email
Mr. Brent Poirier
U.S.A.
Dear Bahá'í Friend,
Your email letters of 3 November 2010, with queries regarding an Internet blog posting about the involvement of Bahá'ís in the Ugandan government's response to homosexuality ... have been received by the Universal House of Justice, which has asked us to convey the following.
With respect to the incident to which you refer, media reports incorrectly associated the Bahá'ís of Uganda with certain activities directed against homosexuals in that country. In 2007 an interfaith association consisting largely of Christian denominations began to take an active role in opposition to homosexuality in Uganda. In a single incident, a Bahá'í representative to the association was unwittingly drawn into this controversy; this involved providing an explanation of the Bahá'í teachings on homosexuality. The National Spiritual Assembly of Uganda took immediate action, and the Bahá'í community subsequently has had no part in such matters.
The story from the Web site that you have quoted asserts that the Bahá'í administrative order in Uganda fell into line and added its voice in support of the proposed death sentence for homosexual individuals. This is absolutely false. With regard to the idea that the House of Justice dispatched a Counsellor to Uganda to educate the community, this is also not accurate. There is, however, a resident Counsellor in Uganda who helped to resolve initial misunderstandings at the time.
[...]
With loving Bahá'í greetings,
Department of the Secretariat
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