Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda Parliament Business Committee

On Tuesday Uganda's Parliament voted to return unfinished bills from the eighth session to the current business session. This included the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009. The bill is now in the hands of the Business Committee which will decide if and how it will be considered.

Parliamentary Live Blog from the Daily Monitor:

5:30pm: Tinkasimire says the anti-gays Bill is overdue because the spirit of his ancestors tells him that they lived without this practices, says he hears government saying when we pass the anti-gays Bill, we shall loose the donor’s money. We can’t afford to stay with such ills in our society and when it comes before the floor, we shall all pass it and support it.

• Speaker says all reports not discussed in the Eighth Parliament will also be brought through a motion and discussed, passed or amended.

The Committee Report on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 that was not discussed by the Eight Session was released in May, 2011.

Warren Throckmorton called members of Uganda's Parliament to find out about where the bill stood in the current business session. The bill is now in the hands of the Business Committee which will decide if and how it will be considered.

This morning I spoke with Parliament Spokeswoman, Helen Kawesa, who told me that no date had been set for debate on the anti-gay measure. “The Business Committee will meet to decide what bills are considered. Then they will be listed on the daily Order Paper,” Kawesa explained. The Business Committee is chaired by Speaker of the House Rebecca Kadaga and made up of all other committee chairs. Currently, no date has been set for this committee to consider a schedule for the bills returned from the Eighth Parliament.

I also spoke briefly to Stephen Tashobya, chair of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee. His committee prepared a report on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in May and recommended passage with some minor changes. He had no comment on the status of the anti-gay bill since he has been traveling.

According to Kawesa, the Business committee could recommend that the anti-gay bill go back to committee or it could recommend that the former committee report become the basis for debate in the Parliament. Apparently, the return of the bill to the floor is not automatic. The Speaker has some ability to delay it or expedite it. The decision of the Business committee may signal how quickly the bill will move.

Zimbabwe PM Tsvangirai Wants Homosexuality Decriminalised

Prime Minister Tsvangirai

On a visit to London last week, Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai told the BBC that he would not object to the recognition of gay rights in the new constitution. This is a very different stance to the one he took in March 2010 where he sided with President Robert Mugabe’s hostile stance about LGBTI persons.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has performed a U-turn on gay rights, and now wants to see homosexuality decriminalised in a new constitution currently being drafted.

Only last March, Tsvangirai came out in support of President Robert Mugabe’s hostile stance on gays, charging: “Women make up 52% of the population... There are more women than men, so why should men be proposing to men?"

Homosexual acts are currently illegal in Zimbabwe. Mugabe once said gays were "worse than pigs and dogs", sparking international condemnation.

But on a visit to London last week, Tsvangirai sat down for an interview with BBC Newsnight, which was due to air on Monday night, in which he withdrew his objections to constitutional recognition of gay rights.

Admitting that homosexuality was a “very controversial subject in my part of the world”, Tsvangirai went on to say: “My attitude is that I hope the constitution will come out with freedom of sexual orientation.

“For as long as it does not interfere with anybody, who am I to define what individual opinion would be as far as their sexual preferences are concerned?”

Asked if he thought gay rights will be recognised in the new constitution, he replied: “I think it’s going to come out. Of course there is a very strong cultural feeling towards gays but to me it’s a human right. It’s something that individuals must be allowed to make a choice.”

In March 2010, President Robert Mugabe (Zanu-PF) and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC-T) came out strongly against including sexual orientation in the new Zimbabwe constitution at a belated Women's Day celebration.

A wave of hostility towards LGBTI persons started after Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) submitted a 15-minute documentary to Zimbabwe's Constitutional Select Committee in February 2010 advocating for the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity in Zimbabwe's new constitution. At the time, GALZ organised an Indaba that resulted in a plan of action and draft resolution declaring that sexual orientation and gender identity are integral to every person’s dignity and humanity.

See Also:

• Zimbabwe's Chinamasa attacks Tsvangirai on gay rights, BBC News