UN 'spreading homosexuality'
2009-04-03 22:08
Kampala - Ugandan Ethics Minister James Nsaba Buturo alleged on Friday that some United Nations member states were engaged in a covert campaign to spread homosexuality around the world.
"At the United Nations there are attempts by some nations to impose homosexuality on the rest of us," he told reporters. "We have learned that they want to smuggle in provisions on homosexuality."
He said he was particularly concerned about an ongoing UN conference on population.
"We got to learn from our sources that there are interests that want to use that conference to bring in issues that will protect homosexuals," he said.
Buturo spoke on Thursday to Uganda's UN ambassador and reminded him of the country's position that homosexuality is "unnatural, abnormal, illegal, dangerous, and dirty".
Buturo also hit back on Friday against a Ugandan gay rights groups who recently made a public call for equal rights.
Accused in the name of ignorance
"We deserve equal rights and protection under the law and constitution. We don't deserve to be demonised and falsely accused in the name of ignorance of who and what we are," Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Intersex Ugandans had said in a statement on Wednesday.
Buturo responded by insisting that the constitution affords no rights to sexual minorities.
"It is not true," he said. "They have been making claims that they are protected as a minority group. If we accept that homosexuals are a minority group then robbers are going to come to us to say that 'we too are a minority group'."
The minister said that Uganda would pass a law that further criminalises homosexuality. "Our current laws are weak," he said.
Buturo has previously said that homosexuality threatens the future of civilisation because homosexual sex does not produce children, and called for the criminalisation of mini-skirts because they can cause traffic accidents by distracting male drivers.
Countries in the region where evangelical churches are powerful have recently mounted what rights groups describe as a crackdown on homosexuals.