SALON

Friday, Jul 23, 2010 12:01 PM UTC

Pastor decries “misrepresentation” of “kill the gays” bill

A Nevada pastor defends his church's financial support of one of the "kill the gays" bill's most prominent backers

By

Topics: LGBT,

Pastor decries Martin Ssempa, left

The pastor of a Nevada megachurch that provides financial support to Martin Ssempa, one of the most prominent backers of Uganda’s notorious “kill the gays” bill, now concedes that his rhetoric has been “offensive” at times — but also contends that Ssempa and the bill have been misrepresented by the media.

Kevin Odor’s Canyon Ridge Church considers Ssempa, who has said that gays like to “eat da poo poo” and boasted of his efforts to “make sure that sodomy and homosexuality never sees the light of legality in this land of the pearl of Africa,” a “strategic mission partner” and has provided money for his Ugandan church, an arrangement that was brought to light in a story that appeared on Salon on July 2.

At the time, Odor said he was “in conversation” with Ssempa but that he didn’t think Ssempa was “the man the media and others have portrayed him to be.” That stance cost Canyon Ridge its affiliation with a Nevada public health agency, which had teamed up with the church to provide local HIV testing.

But apparently that hasn’t altered the church’s view of Ssempa. In a video posted on Canyon Ridge’s website late last week, Odor would only concede that “the way that Martin said some things, once we saw them, were ways that we never would have said them. And some methods we never would have done. And it was offensive.”

But Odor also took issue with what he called the “misrepresentation” of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, claiming that its purpose is to make the penalties equal for male and female victims of sexual abuse, called defilement in Ugandan law.

“There had been a number of sodomy laws on the books already in Uganda but there were a couple of things that weren’t protected,” Odor said. “One in particular is aggravated pedophilia, basically where there was a repeat offender who was violating young men over and over again, and there wasn’t a protection for that.”

In a letter to his congregation, Pastor Odor wrote that church leaders had discussed the bill with Ssempa and that “we have listened to the motivation to protect young boys from sexual violation with the same penalties and protection that young girls in Uganda currently possess.”

Odor ‘s claim that Ugandan law doesn’t address the molestation of boys by adult males is inaccurate. On April 18, 2007, the Uganda Parliament passed the Penal Code Amendment Act of 2007 and corrected the imbalance by removing references to gender, whether for the victim or the perpetrator. Uganda law now reads, “Any person who performs a sexual act with another person who is below the age of eighteen years, commits a felony known as defilement and is on conviction liable to life imprisonment.” The death penalty is reserved for those who defile a child knowing they are HIV positive, as well as other circumstances.

Oddly enough, even Ssempa acknowledges that current Ugandan law addresses both male and female victims of child abuse. On his blog, he has described the reasons why the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was needed:

3. Why does Uganda need bill now.

a. International groups which are coersing homosexuality down our throats ie France and Netherlands at the UN.

b. Lack of protection for the boy child from homosexual rape.

c. Lack of protection for the girls and women in the current law. Only focus on male homosexuality.

d. Lack of legislation against promotion and conspiracies to promote homosexuality.

Note: We have learnt that now the Penal Code was amended to cater for the gender imbalance in b above. (emphasis added)

Ssempa acknowledged in March that the bill was not needed to correct a gender imbalance. Odor has not responded to my questions about why he told his congregation otherwise.

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been condemned by, among many other people and groups, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Rick Warren, World Vision, and the Philadelphia Biblical University. While the bill does replicate existing law on child molestation, it also calls for the death penalty for those who engage in same-sex intimacy and are also HIV-positive, and for life in prison for sexual acts involving two people of the same sex. The bill’s introduction leaves little doubt about the intent:

The object of this Bill is to establish a comprehensive consolidated legislation to protect the traditional family by prohibiting any form of sexual relations between persons of the same sex;

While it is true that a coalition of pastors in Uganda, including Ssempa, has called for reducing the death sentence for those who rape minors under 18, the same coalition made no recommendations about reducing the life sentence for consensual sex among adults of the same gender. The bill has not been amended, according to Charles Tuhaise, a parliamentary researcher, and remains before committee.

Warren Throckmorton, PhD is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Grove City College (Pa.). He blogs regularly about religious and mental health issues at www.wthrockmorton.com. More Warren Throckmorton.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 15 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations