UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe quoted in article

The global outcry against Uganda's "Anti-Homosexuality Bill" could not be more deafening. Opponents of the legislation have condemned the effort not just to put gays in prison, which is already the law in Uganda, but to further criminalize the ''promotion of homosexuality,'' require that suspected gays and lesbians be turned in to authorities, and to punish some individuals -- including those who are HIV positive or those euphemistically called ''repeat offenders'' -- with death.

The governments of Canada, France and Sweden have branded the bill wrongheaded. From Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to President Barack Obama himself, the U.S., a major foreign donor to Uganda, has made its disapproval of the legislation clear. Usually silent religious leaders, from Anglican and Catholic Church leadership to Saddleback Church's Rick Warren and other evangelical Christians, have condemned the bill's promotion of the death penalty, imprisonment for gays and lesbians, and the threat its provisions pose to pastoral confidentiality.

UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe has expressed deep concern with the bill's potential impact on Uganda's heretofore successful HIV-prevention efforts. And while both the African Union and the government of South Africa have characteristically failed to condemn the bill, several important African leaders, including former president of Botswana Festus Mogae and UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Elizabeth Mataka, have spoken out firmly and forcefully. If the bill passes in this firestorm of criticism, it certainly won't be for lack of unified, unequivocal condemnation.

Read the full article on metroweekly.com.

[File photo]