What The Bahati Bill Can Teach Us About The Health Of Our Own Souls

Recently, I have been surprised by separate disclosures of two socially gracious, educated, professional American lesbians—both under the age of 35—that despite their intentions to live open and active gay lives they still wrestle with the fear that eternal punishment in hell may be the result. Neither are particularly religious at the current time, and yet the theologies that shaped them have left parts of their souls twisted and dark, turned away from the grace and belovedness that is their due as God’s holy creation.

The same theologies that have left these secret marks of divine doubt on otherwise well-tended lesbian souls are the same theologies that have produced the dark and twisted Bahati Bill of Uganda, often called the “Kill the Gays Bill.”

I submit to you that the two are linked, and evidence a need for theological liberation as local as possible—within each one of us in LGBTQ communities.

The original draft of the Bahati Bill made it possible to legally kill Ugandan citizens convicted of “aggravated homosexuality” defined as same-sex sexual acts where one participant is a minor, HIV-positive, disabled, or a serial offender. Due to international human rights pressure, the death penalty has been removed from the Bill.

However, its proposed legislation still actively seeks the spiritual death of lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons. The framing of the Bill is all too familiar in its religious resonances. Designed to protect the heterosexual family, the second worse offense is a conviction of same-sex marriage.

To attempt to sacralize a same-sex relationship is punishable by life imprisonment.

David Bahati’s connection to the Christian Evangelical Movement has been well cited. His theocratic sensibility translates “God’s will” into law. He even promised the Bill as a Christmas gift to his people. The Bahati Bill of Uganda is a prime (and still spiritually lethal) example of a misguided and evil infused theocracy.

While we in the United States may quickly see the human rights violation inherent in it and do our part in activist efforts to oppose it, we must also see the myriad ways in which the Bill amplifies the homophobia and misguided theological thinking that we (the LGBTQ community) allow to continue in our own governments, schools, families, and perhaps most importantly in our own psyches.

There is a relationship between what we turn our eyes away from here, and what is flourishing in the Global South.

There is a symbolic gift available for American LGBTQ persons when we are abhorred by international laws that offend our sense of human rights. We must be reminded to cleanse our own souls and the souls of those around us from toxic theology so that we are prepared to help empower and support LGBTQ activists on the ground in their own countries.

We need to work on our own sense of belovedness so we can face the outward reality of abusive theological power writ into law. 

Despite our relative physical freedom, we should identify the relationship between the imprisonment of our Ugandan LGBTQ brothers and sisters and the imprisonment of our own souls. The former is an amplified and externalized version of the latter.

Queer theory teaches us that LGBTQ identities are social constructs created in the West and exported (or imported as the case may be) to all regions of the globe. When we remember this we should also be able to see that when LGBTQ communities in the United States ignore our relationship to religion, refuse to seek theological reconciliation with religious authority—because politically we are somewhat protected—we neglect the secure establishment of healthy and soul strengthening LGBTQ theologies.

These new theologies, if entwined with our political identities established around our sexual orientations, would also be exported/imported and could be integral on the international stage to stop religious political leaders from establishing the right to kill our people in the name of divine governance.

We cannot win the battle against anti-gay theocracy through the use of politics and human rights work alone. Our very souls are at stake and implicit in the fight.

I expressed to the hell-fearing American lesbians my certainty of their belovedness as God’s holy creation, and conviction that the goodness in their life decisions cannot be undermined—only enhanced—by honoring the gift of queer sexuality created within them.

My words should have echoed the words of every preacher and every Christian they had encountered in their young lives. Until this is true for every LGBTQ person around the globe, we have more of God’s work to do.

Originally posted at Intersections International; Photo via Flickr user HBarrison