Christian Nationalists Cheer Uganda Law To Execute Homosexuals
To quote the African proverb, what goes around comes around.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a self-professed, right wing, anti-woke lawmaker, was chastised as too liberal by a far right Christian nationalist group for his criticism of Uganda’s plan to execute gays while Cracker Barrel restaurants, that former bulwark of anti-LGBTQ sentiment, was put on the woke list for showing rainbow painted chairs in honor of Pride Month.
The white hot attack on Cruz was leveled last week by a speaker at the annual conference of a far right, Christian nationalist group, the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, held at Liberty University, a private Baptist university in Lynchburg, Va. The Liberty University student handbook describes any gay sex as prohibited by the Bible and by the school.
The speaker was Jameson Taylor, director of Policy and Legislative Affairs for the American Family Association (AFA-Action), a Christian fundamentalist organization that was listed as an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center since November 2010 for the “propagation of known falsehoods” and the use of “demonizing propaganda” against LGBT people.
Cruz, a staunch opponent of same sex marriage, tweeted last week that the new Uganda law was “grotesque and an abomination.” Under the new law, “serial offenders” who committee “aggravated homosexuality” may be executed. Cruz’s comments drew immediate and inflamed response from the Christian nationalist right wing.
Uganda’s draconian law is hardly a model for any Christian nation or individual. Now, Kenya is considering a similar law that punishes gay sex with prison or death in some cases, in the ongoing assault on LGBT people. Tanzania and South Sudan also have broad anti-LGBTQ laws.
Under a proposed Kenyan law, gay sex is punishable by at least 10 years in jail, while “aggravated homosexuality,” which includes gay sex with a minor or disabled person or when a terminal disease is passed on, brings the death penalty.
Elsewhere on the continent, the maximum penalty for homosexuality is death in Mauritania, Somalia, and Nigeria, Muslim majority countries where sharia law is applied. Life imprisonment is the maximum penalty for same-sex relations in Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Jail terms of up to 14 years are possible in Gambia, Kenya and Malawi.
The High Court of Kenya in 2019 upheld a law criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual activity, saying it was “an effective method to contain the country’s HIV epidemic”.
In 2017, Chad criminalized same-sex acts in what the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) called “a worrying example of legal regression in the region.”
Although homosexuality is not a crime in Egypt, discrimination against the LGBTQ community is rife. Gay men are frequently arrested and typically charged with debauchery, immorality or blasphemy. Ivory Coast does not criminalize gay sex but there have been recorded cases of detention and prosecution.
Tanzania has banned provision of condoms and lubricants to LGBTQ health clinics and, since 2018, increased the use of forced anal examinations. Sodomy convictions in Tunisia have reportedly been on the rise.
A minority of African nations, 22 of 54, allow homosexuality.
Broad protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation exists in three countries: Angola, Mauritius and South Africa. Employment protection exists in the same three countries plus Botswana, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Seychelles.
South Africa is the only African country where gay marriage is legal. In 2018, the cabinet approved a bill criminalizing hate crimes and hate speech. However, South Africa has high rates of homophobic crime.
Botswana decriminalized homosexuality in 2019 and Gabon in 2020.
Taylor defended the Uganda law as “divine law and natural law” not unlike penalties the early American colonists lodged against gays. Speaking before the gathering of right-wing Christian nationalists, Taylor said that “following British law, the American colonies imposed the death penalty for sodomy.”
Taylor said that Thomas Jefferson and others sought to change the law “calling instead for castration and that was because he wanted to reserve the death penalty only for murder and treason.” Taylor said the “very lenient Quakers in Pennsylvania preferred to punish sodomy with whipping, forfeiture of one-third of one’s property, and six months hard labor for a first offense.”
Lauren Witzke, the 2020 GOP Senate candidate in Delaware, quickly responded to Cruz that the Ugandan death penalty was necessary to stem the growth of LGBTQ protections.
“Unlike the lawmakers in Texas, the Uganda government recognizes that if you give an inch, the LGBTQ Mafia will take a mile,” wrote Witzke. “While you guys struggle to stop drag queens from twerking on the laps of toddlers, they stop it before it starts.”
Witzke, 35, a virulent, anti-LGBTQ activist and QAnon proponent, won the 2020 GOP primary with 57 percent of the vote and went on to collect 37 percent in the general election but lost to incumbent Democrat Chris Coons.
Witzke has described Black Lives Matter as “violent terrorists,” has said that the COVID-19 vaccine is a “satanic plot” to cause “mass death” and that she believes in the flat Earth theory. Witzke also supports the QAnon conspiracy theory that a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic sexual abusers of children operating a global child sex trafficking ring conspired against trump during his term in office.
The comments from Taylor and Witzke are in lock step with the ongoing, unrelenting Right wing conservative attack on the LGBTQ community. Trump released a campaign video decrying “the left-wing gender insanity being pushed on our children” and vowed that, if reelected, his administration would work to ban gender-affirming care for minors “in all 50 states,” officially recognize “male” and “female” as “assigned at birth” as the only genders, and reconfigure school curriculums to teach students “positive education about the nuclear family [and] the roles of mothers and fathers.”
Trump’s leading competitor for the GOP nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has signed laws attacking LGBTQ inclusion, especially in schools, as part of his “anti-woke” governing agenda.
A 2022 Pew survey found that most Americans say that whether one is a man or woman is determined by sex assigned at birth and oppose requiring that health insurance cover gender-affirmation care. A 2023 Washington Post/KFF poll found that a large majority supported anti-discrimination protections for trans individuals, but a slightly smaller majority also opposed trans women participating in women’s sports.
At the March Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C, anti-gay commentator Michael Knowles got sustained applause when he told the gathering that “transgenderism must be eradicated.”
As director of AFA Action, Taylor led the effort to pass the 15-week abortion ban that resulted in the overturning of Roe v. Wade and is also responsible for helping pass “best-in-the-nation welfare-to-work reforms in Mississippi.” He is president and CEO of the Center for Political Renewal (CPR), whose mission is to “equip Christian lawmakers to champion policies aimed at renewing and strengthening families.”
Taylor also is a writer for the conservative, American Spectator publication.
The National Association of Christian Lawmakers was formed in 2019 and claims to have members and supporters in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. The association says it is the first formal national association of Christian lawmakers in the history of the nation and is the “only faith based para-legislative organization operating in the country today.” The association offers model legislation to its state members, many which have become law.
The association logo is a red crusader’s shield with a white cross, representing “the blood of Jesus Christ, shed on the cross as a sacrifice for the salvation of all humanity.” The emblem is meant to evoke the biblical “shield of faith” that promises to “extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one,” according to association founder and former Arkansas Republican State Senator, Jason Rapert.
“Any Christian elected official or anyone supporting Christians serving in elected office is welcome to become a member,” says the association website. “We believe that America would be better off if more Christians would run for elected office at the local, state, and federal levels. The Bible says in Psalm 33:12 ‘Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.’ We need to elect more godly leaders in our nation at every level.”
The association’s goals include abolishing abortion, “restoring marriage between one man and one woman, standing up for religious liberty in every venue, promoting universal school choice and championing the right to introduce our young people to the importance of God in their lives — we are doing everything we can to restore the Judeo-Christian foundation of our nation.”
Rapert, 51, was an Arkansas State Senator from 2011 to 2023 and represented the 35th district. He lists his profession as “politician, Christian Missionary.”
Rapert believes in banning abortion even for victims of rape and incest, as well as banning exceptions for the health of the mother. In a 2017 Facebook post, Rapert compared LGBT people to Nazis.
“The LGBT activists who behave as Nazis are trying to ruin anyone who ‘disagrees’ with them — even grandmothers. Simply believing in the Bible is offensive to these activists. They can’t stand it if you disagree. They demand full compliance with their diminished morality. They clearly behave just like the ‘brown shirts’ and ‘SS’ troops that Nazis used to destroy Jews and anyone who disagreed with the Nazi ideology,” Rapert posted.
Rapert also has pushed for the installation of the privately funded Ten Commandments Monument on the Arkansas state capitol grounds. The monument was challenged by the ACLU as being a violation of clauses in both the federal and state constitutions prohibiting the government from favoring any religion. The first version of the monument was installed in 2017, and was destroyed less than 24 hours later. A new version of the monument was unveiled in 2018.
In February 2015, Rapert said the U.S. should use nuclear weapons in response to the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
The association’s advisory board includes Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, presidential candidate and father of the current Arkansas Republican governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Also on the board is Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, and Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel.
Others on the board include former Rep. Bob McEwen, R-Va.; Tony Perkins, president, Family Research Council and former state legislator Louisiana House of Representatives; Rod Martin of Florida, a former PayPal executive; Hunter Lundy, a candidate for Louisiana Governor; and Pastor Happy Caldwell of Arkansas President of Victory Television Network.
Rapert declares that America was founded as a “Judeo-Christian nation.” He said that he believes that from the moment the founding fathers “dedicated this nation to God” that “Satan and his forces [have] put a target on the United States of America, trying to take us out.”
Rapert has accused the Biden administration of using “the reigns of government to drive our nation into unrighteousness.” He warned the White House, “I’m telling you Joe Biden, you cannot keep mocking God and expecting there not to be a consequence. There will be a consequence.”
On a recent trip to Florida, Rapert left a note on the desk of DeSantis that said, “We’re proud of your stand for God and Country.”
The American Family Association was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, then the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Miss. The AFA has long been at the forefront in America’s culture war. The ministry was originally called the National Federation for Decency but was changed to American Family Association in 1988. The AFA claims to be one of the largest and most effective pro-family organizations in the country with hundreds of thousands of supporters.
Cracker Barrel has joined Cruz in gaining the ire of Christian nationalists and other anti-LGBTQ groups. In recent weeks, other corporations have come under fire for positive LGBTQ agendas, including Anheuser-Busch InBev, maker of Budd Light, and Target.
The restaurant chain, known for its down-home decor, Southern country-themed menu and affordable prices, has been targeted for a boycott from critics who object to the chain showing support for LGBTQ+ people.
Last week, Cracker Barrel published a Facebook post celebrating June as Pride Month, and included a picture of a rocking chair painted in the rainbow colors.
“We are excited to celebrate Pride Month with our employees and guests,” the restaurant posted. “Everyone is always welcome at our table (and our rocker). Happy Pride!”
Right wing personalities, such as Lauren Chen, host of BlazeTV, urged consumers to avoid Cracker Barrel.
Cracker Barrel found itself on the other side of the LGBTQ battles and came under fire from LGBTQ advocates in the early 1990s after founder and CEO Dan Evins instituted an official company policy prohibiting the hiring of any individual whose “sexual preferences fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual values.” Following public backlash and large shareholders such as the New York City Employee Retirement System threatening to vote out the entirety of upper management, the company reversed the policy.
Headquartered in Tennessee, Cracker Barrel opened its first location in 1969 and now operates 664 locations nationwide with about 73,000 employees. In the third-quarter, the publicly traded chain reported profits of $16.8 million on revenue of $833 million, up from 5.4 percent the year ago-period.