update 2: likely hoax, more info here.
Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin (BTB) brings us tragic news from Uganda, where Pasikali Kashusbe, a member of Integrity Uganda, had gone missing earlier this month. According to the Anglican blog "Changing Attitude", Pasikali's severed head was found accidentally, while searching for another missing activist:
A search for a missing pro-gay priest, the Rev Henry Kayizzi Nsubuga, who disappeared almost two and half weeks ago after delivering a scathing speech at St. Paul's Church, Kanyanya supporting homosexuality in Uganda, led the joint search team of Integrity Uganda and Namirembe Diocese to the severed head of another person. The head was found in a pit latrine on the farm of Badru Kiggundu, the Electoral Commission Chairman, in Makindye Sabagabo, Wakiso District.
Judith Nabakooba, a police spokesperson, identified the head as that of Pasikali Kashusbe, one of the workers on Kigggundu’s farm and a member of Integrity Uganda... According to the police, a mutilated torso which was earlier in the week discovered in Kabuuma Zone, about half a kilometre away from Kiggundu’s farm was probably Pasikali’s. The torso was described as belonging to a young man and had no genitals.
Video via BTB:
Integrity Uganda, founded in 2000 by the reverend Erich and Patricia Kasirye, is one of the few organizations in Uganda to have stood up to the official campaign of homophobia, led by politicians like David Bahati. Bahati has become a minor celebrity in the west for authoring the infamous "Kill the Gays" bill.
As many of you probably know, Uganda has taken a turn for the worse in its treatment of the LGBT community. This conservative shift was begun in part by the Anglican Church of Uganda, whose archbishop Livingstone Mpalanyi-Nkoyoyo has used forceful homophobic rhetoric to alienate not only the few supportive Anglicans within Uganda, but also the international dioceses that don't share it.
Changing Attitude argues that events like these need to spur serious self-reflection on the part of the Anglican Church:
Pasikali’s death is tragic, and stands as a reason why the Anglican Communion must change its teaching on homosexuality. There is no reason why the consciences of those who oppose the full inclusion of LGBT people should be allow to inhibit change in the church. The prevention of torture and murder of any individual must always be the first priority, ensuring that all citizens and Christians can live in an environment of love, security and affirmation.
The longer the argument about avoiding splits and schism in the church continues in the face of the horrendous legislation proposed in Uganda and the murder of LGBT people in the UK and the USA as well as Uganda and other African countries, the more insistent becomes the call for change in the church, NOW.
There's also the influence of American evangelicals, which has been discussed extensively at this site, and rightly so: while we can express our anger at Ugandan officials for their policies, we have a special responsibility towards the actions of Americans who've gotten involved in the process.
If you're new to the discussion, the best place to start is this extensive post by Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend, who was kind enough to post it under the WGLB series:
When I sat down to write this piece about the legislation in Uganda that not only criminalizes homosexuality, but calls for the execution of gays, I didn't know where to begin. This is story with so many tentacles and shadowy (and not so shadowy) connections to homophobic clerics around the globe, American supporters of Uganda's anti-gay government, "The Family" and a host of other groups that it sounds like a bad novel.
After that I highly recommend BTB's persistent, regular coverage.
Recently, Current TV's Peabody-award winning investigative journalism show Vanguard did an hour-long analysis of the influence of American evangelicals on Uganda's LGBT debate, "Missionaries of Hate". If you haven't seen this, you absolutely must. It's a riveting, in-depth segment, tackling the subject with more immediacy than any of our mainstream news organizations have dared:
This stuff is brutal and heartbreaking, and because 'our' evangelicals have some complicity in how this has turned out, we cannot let them forget this. From Vanguard:
Scott Lively is an American Evangelical who preaches about what he calls 'the gay agenda'... Lively has given this talk many times, in many places. But this particular video is from a conference that Lively headlined in the East African nation of Uganda, and many believe it had an explosive effect. One month after the Americans' visit, a bill was introduced that would make homosexuality a crime punishable by life in prison, or in some cases death.
Please watch this video. It's one thing to read these stories on a blog: it's another to see interviews with Ugandans who are terrified.
And with the discovery of Pasikali's body and the ongoing search for Rev Henry Kayizzi Nsubuga, it's not hard to see why.
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update: Parthenia's comment is worth adding here:
Thank you for reporting on this murder. We need to know about these things. And, thank you for covering the Episcopal church on one side -- bless them -- and the US evangelical influence on the other.
AND >> a reminder, not all American religious influence is evangelical. Unitarian Universalist ministers traveled to Uganda to support full human and civil rights for Ugandan's GLBT people. As this post makes clear, supporting gay rights in Uganda is dangerous
Liberal religious voices exist and are actively working to oppose hatred. But, we do not get much media coverage. Links here, and here