Where would Jesus Stand?

It would require a very peculiar reading of the Gospel to locate Jesus anywhere else but at the side of the marginalised and vulnerable.

The proposed law in Uganda that would mandate prison terms, or even the death penalty, for homosexuals should trouble all of Africa’s civil society, including the Catholic Church.

According to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, those caught engaging in sex with a member of the same gender or those who touch each other in a gay way could be jailed. Persons found guilty of aggravated homosexuality (same-sex rape, sex with a person with a disability or below the age of 18, or when the accused is HIV-positive) face the death penalty.

Rape and knowingly spreading HIV are despicable crimes, but surely the laws governing such offences should apply equally to those guilty of aggravated heterosexuality.

Alarmingly, a clause in the bill seeks to punish those who fail to report a homosexual act within 24 hours of witnessing or learning about it. This surely would facilitate false denunciations for gain, advancement or vengeance, much like Christians are exposed to in Pakistan under that country’s intolerable blasphemy law.

Already there seems to be evidence of a concerted campaign, underpinned by crass propaganda and physical assaults, to vilify homosexuals in Uganda, a country where a human rights culture has yet to take root. The proposed law seems to declare open season on homosexuals. One need not listen too closely to hear echoes of the events leading to the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Ironically, Rwanda, a country where half the population is Catholic, reportedly plans to follow Uganda’s lead in legislating against homosexuality.

Deplorably, religious leaders have gone on record in support of the Ugandan Bill.

It is disappointing that the secretary-general of Uganda’s bishops conference, Mgr John Baptist Kauta, in his comments to Catholic News Service seems to endorse the proposed law on grounds that homosexuality does not conform with traditional Ugandan culture.

But what of the teachings of the Catholic Church? Even as it rejects homosexual carnal acts as forthrightly as Mgr Kauta would approve of, the Catechism of the Catholic Church declares that every sign of unjust discrimination in their [homosexuals] regard should be avoided (2358). Jailing homosexuals for having sex certainly is a sign of unjust discrimination.

The Catechism demands that homosexuals must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. There is nothing in what Mgr Kauta is quoted as saying that indicates acceptance, respect, compassion or sensitivity. Nor does the silence of the Ugandan episcopate help in applying this teaching of the Church.

Moreover, legislation that mandates the death penalty should be of concern for the Church, which rejects capital punishment except in grave circumstances (Catechism 2266-7).

Prejudice and persecution of homosexuals have no place in the Catholic Church. The Vatican recently ratified that notion when its spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi SJ, issued a rebuke to the former curial prefect Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragon, who reportedly claimed that homosexuals cannot attain salvation.

Fr Lombardi presumably did not correct a senior cardinal on his own initiative, and he employed a restrained tone. It was remarkable that the Vatican issued a statement countering the cardinal’s doctrinally suspect statement in the first place, sending a signal that the Vatican is not insensitive to prejudices that seek to dehumanise homosexuals.

It would require a very peculiar reading of the Gospel to locate Jesus anywhere else but at the side of the marginalised and vulnerable. In the case of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, the Church must be seen to be standing with those who face unjust persecution, even if  especially if  it does not condone the lifestyles of those at risk. That would be true Christian witness.