“After evaluating Canyon Ridge Christian Church’s backing of Pastor Ssempa of Uganda and his support of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, we feel that it is in the best interest of our clients, supporters and staff to dissolve our relationship with the church immediately,” AFAN’s statement read.

For the past five years, Canyon Ridge has organized a team, officially recognized by AFAN, and marched in the AIDS group’s annual AIDS walk.

AFAN’s decision makes it the second AIDS organization in two months to break with the Nevada church. In July, the Southern Nevada Health District announced that the church would no longer be a site for its AIDS testing program.

As Salon first reported on July 2, Canyon Ridge has supported Martin Ssempa since 2007, paying for staff salaries at Ssempa’s Makerere Community Church in Uganda. Canyon Ridge officials met with Ssempa in March of this year and expressed concern over some of his methods of supporting the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which have included showing hard-core gay pornography in various church-related venues. But they decided to maintain their support for Ssempa, claiming that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill had been misrepresented in the media.

Despite language in the bill calling for life in prison for HIV-negative gays and the death penalty for “repeat offenders” and HIV-positive gays, the church said that the bill’s penalties only applied to child molesters and the intentional spread of HIV.

When Canyon Ridge’s Ssempa connection was first brought to its attention, AFAN refused to comment. But when a petition from Michael Jones at Change.org generated over 200 signatures and activists began speaking up, the organization launched an investigation, leading to Wednesday’s announcement.

After the second worship service, the teens were invited into the church for a dialogue during which, Cates says, Canyon Ridge’s pastors acknowledged that Uganda’s anti-gay bill provided penalties for consensual adult sexual behavior. Kevin Odor, one of the pastors, had publicly suggested that the bill only addresses “aggravated pedophilia.”

Cates said he wanted to raise awareness about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill and said that “if this bill was passed and people were executed or criminalized in any way, Canyon Ridge Christian Church in turn would be held responsible for financing Ssempa who so overtly pushed the bill.”

Cates, a Las Vegas man who will enter college in the fall, said the reaction from the church members was mostly positive. “After the second service, CRCC invited us to join members of the church to have an open discussion of the issue. We took them up on their offer and ended up having a two-hour conversation with Pastor [Mitch] Harrison and others,” he said.

According to Harrison, “nine or so” protesters came into the church for the discussion. Harrison said the teens raised “concerns about the bill criminalizing homosexual behavior.” He added, “Our goal in meeting with them wasn’t so much to express our opinions but to listen to their concerns and gain understanding.” 

It is unclear whether that understanding will signal a change in the church’s stance toward the controversial anti-gay bill.

As reported in Salon last week, Odor has previously said that  the Uganda bill has been misrepresented by unnamed media. The claim that it merely targets pedophiles seems to ignore current Ugandan law, which already covers pedophilic offenses. In addition to replicating additional statutes on the abuse of children, the proposed bill includes the death sentence for HIV-positive people who engage in homosexual behavior and life in prison for non-HIV-positive gays. There have been rumors of amendments to the bill, but none have been publicly published or discussed in the Ugandan parliament. 

According to Cates, the pastors promised to contact Ssempa and convey the group’s concerns. Cates said that the protesters ranged in age from 15 to 19 and “most of them were straight” and concerned about the impact of the Ugandan proposal. Cates said he hopes the church can influence Ssempa to change his stance or convince the church to stop sending offerings to support the anti-gay campaign.

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.

Dr. Sands stated that “Pastor Ssempa’s support of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which would criminally penalize homosexuals, is in direct conflict with the overarching public health goals of the health district.”

As written, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill would impose the death penalty on HIV-positive people caught in homosexual intimacy. Non-HIV positive gays could get life in prison. In Uganda, support for the bill is driven by a coalition of Muslim and evangelical clergy, with Martin Ssempa leading the charge via local demonstrations and the international media. Despite Ssempa’s vocal promotion of the bill, Canyon Ridge Christian Church has stuck by him, declining to condemn his harsh anti-gay rhetoric or the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

In the past, Southern Nevada partnered with Canyon Ridge church to offer HIV testing on site, most recently on June 27, the National HIV Testing Day. Calling it “unfortunate that we will be unable to continue to work together as community partners,”  Sands said the action was necessary to remain consistent with basic principles of public health practice.

Sands further explained: “One of the central tenets of public health is to provide services without judgment. We also apply this principle in working with our various partners. However, we are profoundly concerned about your partnership with Pastor Ssempa as it contradicts this central tenet in that it amounts to tacit approval of activities that violate the basic human rights that should be afforded to all Ugandans.”

Despite the action last week, Southern Nevada did not rule out a relationship with the church in the future. Sands urged Canyon Ridge to reconsider its support for those who promote harsh legal measures toward gays in Uganda, saying, “I believe both of our missions will be better accomplished through the support of programs and activities that promote tolerance and acceptance.”

Canyon Ridge’s resistance comes even as the Willow Creek Association, a massive global network of evangelical churches that includes Canyon Ridge, distances itself from Ssempa. The WCA bestowed a “Courageous Leadership” award on Ssempa’s Kampala-based Makerere Community Church in 2007, but on Thursday, the group said that it no longer has a relationship with Ssempa and that it wouldn’t have honored his church had it been more fully aware of his views.

But Canyon Ridge, which considers Ssempa a “mission partner” and helps pay for staff at his Kampala church, is digging in its heels. After promising in early June to review Ssempa’s involvement in Uganda’s anti-gay movement, pastors Mitch Harrison and Kevin Odor said last week that they “do not believe Martin Ssempa to be the man the media and others have portrayed him to be.”

The “kill the gays bill” is officially known as the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (AHB), and its stated mission “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.” Penalties include life in prison for any same-sex intimacy, with the death penalty authorized for “serial offenders” and consensual sex among HIV positive gay people. The bill requires an HIV test, presumably to differentiate penalties. Jail time and fines could be given if one even knows someone who is gay and fails to report it to authorities. During the February National Prayer Breakfast, both President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton specifically condemned the bill.

When the AHB was first introduced in Uganda’s Parliament by David Bahati in April 2009,  Ssempa was in the gallery as a supporter. Ssempa, who was elevated to international fame by virtue of his 2005 appearance at the groundbreaking Disturbing Voices AIDS conference at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, told me just after the bill’s first reading in October 2009, “I am in total support of the bill and would be most grateful if it did pass.”

As the brutality of the bill became clear, many observers looked to Warren, one of the country’s most prominent evangelical leaders, to denounce it, given his prior relationship with Ssempa. When it was introduced, I asked Warren’s publicist for a reaction to the bill and was provided a statement from Rick and Kay Warren in which they distanced themselves from Ssempa:

Martin Ssempa does not represent me, my wife Kay, Saddleback Church, nor the Global PEACE Plan strategy. In 2007, we completely severed contact with Mr. Ssempa when we learned that his views and actions were in serious conflict with our own.

Ssempa’s views are extreme indeed. Warren’s private distance might have been provoked by Ssempa’s statements about HIV treatment and gays, like those he made to PlusNews:

Homosexuals should absolutely not be included in Uganda’s HIV/AIDS framework. It is a crime, and when you are trying to stamp out a crime you don’t include it in your programmes.

Warren found that his initial declaration about Ssempa didn’t offset criticism, and so in December 2009, he strongly denounced the AHB, calling it “unjust, extreme and un-Christian toward homosexuals” via a letter and YouTube video addressed directly to Uganda’s pastors.

Other groups have followed Warren’s dramatic lead and severed ties with Ssempa. For instance, WAIT Training, an abstinence education group, demanded that Ssempa remove all references to its group from his website. Philadelphia Biblical University, where Ssempa earned a master’s degree and received an honorary doctorate, issued a statement denouncing the bill .

But Canyon Ridge still considers Ssempa a mission partner and has continued to defend him even as he’s gained an international reputation as the face of the AHB. When Canyon Ridge speaks of its famous partner, it portrays him as a tireless AIDS activist who promotes successful faith-based AIDS prevention in Uganda. This is the Martin Ssempa Canyon Ridge wants people to believe they are supporting. But how long can the megachurch maintain this posture?

Just consider the case of the Willow Creek Association, which bills itself as “the most influential ministry to evangelical pastors in the U.S.” and boasts “more than 11,000 Member Churches in 35 countries,” and is now distancing itself from Ssempa. (Canyon Ridge is part of the WCA network.)

WCA’s signature leadership training events are conducted in “more than 250 cities in 50 countries each year” — including Uganda, where the group partnered with Ssempa in November 2009. In other words, as Warren was publicly severing his ties with Ssempa, the WCA was strengthening its ties. In 2007, for example, the WCA bestowed its award on Ssempa’s church for its work in AIDS prevention. 

But this year, Ssempa has shocked the world by showing hardcore pornography in several meetings designed to drum up support for the AHB, at least one of which was in a church. He’s also shown slides that he claimed depicted “what homosexuals do in the privacy of their bedroom” — leading to his infamous statement that homosexuals like to “eat da poo poo.” He has also appeared in public meetings with Islamic clerics to decry homosexuality. In one such meeting with Ssempa, the Tabliq cleric Multah Bukenya threatened to provide squads of people to hunt down gays.

This was apparently enough to budge the WCA somewhat. On Thursday, Steve Bell, the organization’s executive vice president, told me that Ssempa is no longer affiliated with their leadership summit in Uganda. Regarding the 2007 award, Bell wrote:

Willow Creek Association (WCA) was unaware of Martin Ssempa’s views regarding the criminalization of homosexuality when the honorable mention award was presented to him at the 2007 Global Leadership Summit. Had his views been known, particularly his prior support of the death penalty related to the AHB [Anti-Homosexuality Bill], he would not have been considered as a candidate for the award.

Early this year, Canyon Ridge issued a statement expressing support for Ssempa and declining to enter into the AHB debate. Then in June, after Ssempa’s most recent statements came to light, the church said that it was “in conversation with” him about his work on behalf of the AHB. But just last week, Canyon Ridge’s pastors told me that they “do not believe Martin Ssempa to be the man the media and others have portrayed him to be.”

Mitch Harrison, one of the pastors, declined to reveal how much funding is given, but told me that the Ssempas “fall near the middle of the range” of what Canyon Ridge provides to its mission partners.

Even though the WCA itself is now uncomfortable with Ssempa, the church network has no plans to sever ties with Canyon Ridge, telling me on Thursday:

WCA membership does not imply that the WCA supports or agrees with a church’s position on social or political issues. Willow Creek Association’s goal is not to interfere in the political processes of other nations. Rather, its sole mission is to provide resources and training to church leaders around the world that will assist them as they minister to people in their communities and help them find a deeper understanding of God.

But Canyon Ridge’s posture could isolate it in other ways. National HIV Testing Day was June 27. An annual event founded by the National Association of Persons with AIDS, the day raises awareness about HIV testing and encourages people everywhere to “take the test and take control.” In recent years, NAPWA and the Centers for Disease Control have reached out to churches to become test sites — in Las Vegas with Canyon Ridge, in what the church describes as a “show of compassion,” acting as a host site for the past two years.

The organizers of the National HIV Testing Day were surprised and troubled by Canyon Ridge’s support for Ssempa. Tom Kajawski, spokesman for NAPWA, told me that “NAPWA conducts, sponsors and endorses HIV testing campaigns that are congruent with NAPWA’s ethos, mission and programs.” While declining to comment without further study, he said that a venue that supported the AHB would not be consistent with their mission or create a welcoming environment. And this past Monday, Jennifer Sizemore, a spokeswoman for the agency that actually conducted the HIV tests at the church, Southern Nevada Health District, told me that her organization was evaluating its relationship with Canyon Ridge in light of the church’s  support for Ssempa. Gay advocate Michael Jones created a petition on Change.org calling on the church to denounce the AHB and another one calling on the Southern Nevada Health District to cut ties with the church if they failed to do so.

The support of Canyon Ridge and the Willow Creek Association raises important questions for faith-based groups that work with gays and lesbians in AIDS-related ministries. Rick Warren initially sidestepped questions about the Ugandan bill, telling Newsweek, “It is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations.” Only later, when he saw that his work was being  hindered by silence on the issue, did he reverse himself.

Can ministries like Canyon Ridge and Willow Creek have a successful outreach to GLBT people and people living with AIDS in the U.S. while going soft on those who stigmatize gays elsewhere?

Andrew Marin, an evangelical who seeks to build bridges to the GLBT community and author of “Love Is an Orientation,” says no.

“In no way, shape or form can any ministry have even one ounce of credibility with the LGBT or HIV/AIDS community and be neutral or supportive of the Ugandan Anti-Homosexual Bill,” Marin said. He called the Anti-Homosexuality Bill “another watershed line in the sand moment for evangelicalism,” adding that “Canyon Ridge Christian Church, and any other church throughout the world who wants to have any influence in the HIV/AIDS community, needs to be very swift, clear and concise about the un-Christian and clearly unbiblical intent of this horrendous legislation.”

Marin’s description of a “line in the sand for evangelicalism” seems accurate. American ministries who partner with anti-gay campaigners in other countries are now facing pushback not just from gay activists but from their sister and brother evangelicals. Those who believe they are immune may soon find that you can’t preach one thing here and support something else around the world.