Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Death penalty for gays?

Uganda is considering bringing in the death penalty for gay people. You can read about it in this New York Times article which was brought to my notice by Lee Wind.

It's bad enough denying gay people the right to marriage but this is an order of magnitude worse. We need as many people as possible to say so.

Lee has links to petitions you can sign. I'm not sure that they're open to non-US residents: you have to choose a US state as part of your address.

Whether or not we can sign those petitions we need to make our voices heard. It doesn't matter if you're gay or not. Living in a world where people are killed because of who they are isn't good for any of us.

Edited to add: The UK petition is here. Thanks to Old Kitty for the link.

18 COMMENTS:

Bevie said...

It's incredibly frightening. What the fools who support such legislation/behavior fail to realize is that the saying is true: What goes around comes around. And so is the other: If we don't all hang together, we will certainly all hang separately.

But who among us can honestly say they do not have at least one person in their life who matters to them is is gay?

Old Kitty said...

Hi

Please would you mind if I send the current UK petition here? The deadline for this petition to close is 26 Jan.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ugandangays/#detail

Thanks

x

Ann said...

Thanks for this post and the link to the petitions. It seems mankind can not learn from the mistakes of history. What about the children born with HIV? I can't find words to express my abhorrence towards this development!

fairyhedgehog said...

Bevie, you're right. And even if I didn't know anyone who is gay, I would still consider this to be horrific.

Old Kitty, thanks for that link. I've signed the petition.

Ann, sometimes it's hard not to despair.

Lee Wind, M.Ed. said...

Yay - I'm so glad there's a UK petition. Thanks for spreading the word!
Namaste,
Lee

fairyhedgehog said...

Lee, I'm so glad Old Kitty found it!

Richard N said...

I've signed the UK petition, and also linked to it in Our-Local and encouraged others to join me.

Thanks for flagging this up...

Kate said...

Over the past month or two Rachel Maddow has devoted a lot of air time to this issue, and it's a pretty scarily tangled web with US religious leaders and evangelical politicians. Also, unspeakably depressing.

Robin B. said...

This is disgusting. Only animals could dream up something this disgusting.

Fuckers.

Unknown said...

This is unbelievably horrifying. I don't even know if I can articulate how much this terrifies and saddens me. My mind can't even wrap around it.

Sarah Laurenson said...

it's a pretty scarily tangled web with US religious leaders and evangelical politicians

Unfortunately yes. Some of our religious idiots went over there and told them how bad gays are. Of course, these guys are back pedaling like crazy saying they didn't know the death penalty was an option. When you preach hate, why are you surprised to get your message across?

Word ver: worsit - nuff said

fairyhedgehog said...

Richard, I'm glad you've linked to it at Our-Local. I'll have to pop across and see the reaction.

Kate, I'm afraid it is very depressing.

Robin, and disgusting too, I agree.

maybe, it is horrifying. Sometimes I despair of the human race.

Sarah, you'd think it would be obvious that that kind of regime isn't just going to fine someone. It's amazing how people can blind themselves to the obvious.

Whirlochre said...

That's the trouble with trying to stamp out the shitty stuff — so hard to stop it squeezing through your toes.

fairyhedgehog said...

Not sure what you mean, Whirl.

writtenwyrdd said...

Didn't I hear about this a few weeks ago? Regardless, it's inhumane and awful. But, putting it in sort of perspective, there are many things already in existence, such as honor killings of women, which are horrible. We seem as a species to just recycle our bad ideas and cruelties. Argh.

I sure hope that this law is revoked. Maybe international pressure will have some effect.

fairyhedgehog said...

ww, It's true that this is just one of innumerable instances of how cruel humans can be to each other. If I thought about it too often I'd despair.

Lisa said...

this is beyond homophobic! beyond limiting gay rights - it's just evil.
They'd be putting my daughter to death if she lived there.
Reminds me rather of hitler, as he slowly added more and more people to his extermination list.
yes writtenworld - sadly we humans are a pretty sad lot in the violent and oppressive things that we do to each. I agree with fairyhedgehog, we just can't dwell too much - unless of course there is something that we can do to help, even if only to raise our voice to be heard with the many.

fairyhedgehog said...

Lisa, how terrible to think of this in relation to your own daughter. I wish people weren't so horrible to each other.

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