Two days ago the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed an anti-gay bill into law. The new law includes lifetime imprisonment for those convicted of engaging in acts of homosexual intercourse or being part of a same-sex marital union. A day later Uganda’s major tabloid “Red Pepper” published an edition with the following front page headline: “Exposed! Uganda’s Top 200 Homos Named”. You might be forgiven for thinking the article looks uncomfortably like a hit list. One can only imagine the fear of homosexuals living in Uganda, a country that has a population which is purportedly 84% Christian.
One suspects that many conservative Christians in North America will be less angered by the persecution of Ugandan homosexuals than the possibility that the NFL might have an openly gay player this fall. So let’s put things into perspective.
Imagine that a revival broke out among legislators in Canada and the United States, leading them to seek new ways to introduce legislation that would penalize behavior perceived to be unbiblical. The idea would certainly appeal to many conservative Christians, right?
Well let’s imagine that one of the first bills signed into law was the Marriage Adultery Act which advised life imprisonment for any Christians who divorced and then remarried on the basis that they were living in adultery (Matthew 19:9). A day later a major US tabloid publishes a cover story titled “Exposed! America’s top 200 Adulterers Named” which identified leading evangelicals who had been divorced and remarried.
At that point I am suspecting that many Christians would be rather less enthused about the newly discovered religious zeal of North American legislators.
Personally, I am sick unto death of Christian conservatives who speak out against homosexuality in the comfortable confines of western society while remaining silent on the egregious persecution of homosexuals from India to Russia to Uganda, tragically often at the hands of Christians.
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was demonized by a society, listed on a tabloid hit list, beaten and sent to jail, and you said nothing.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you demonized by a society, listed on a tabloid hit list, beaten and sent to jail, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
