My epiphany

As I write this column, World Pride begins in Toronto. Ten days of celebration of the gay community. I have to be candid and say that this is a very delicate area for me and I’ve personally experienced an entirely new set of ideas and people around the issue in the past six months. I am, as they say, a work in progress but I can tell you that some of the things I said, and thought, in the past were wrong and I would not say them again. 

My epiphany as it were began after the Ugandan anti-gay campaign was re-ignited and I lamented the ugly language and attitudes of many of the country’s indigenous evangelical Christians and American evangelical groups pumping money and support into this anti-gay campaign. As a Catholic I had and still have to speak out against this travesty of justice and humanity. 

At the time Uganda considered imposing the death penalty on the “crime” of homosexuality but then diluted the legislation to allow those convicted of homosexuality to be imprisoned for life. President Yoweri Museveni formally introduced the anti-homosexuality act, which also outlaws the promotion of homosexuality and requires citizens to denounce to the police anyone suspected of being gay. “No study has shown you can be homosexual by nature. That’s why I have agreed to sign the bill,” Museveni explained.