A quick note to bring to readers’ attention that the New York Times has followed up on the articles about the Ugandan situation to which I linked yesterday with an editorial today entitled “Hate Begets Hate.”This editorial statement is powerful. In my view, it should be celebrated by anyone concerned about human rights. It unambiguously calls the proposal to make homosexual behavior a capital crime “barbarism” that ought, if Uganda carries through with the proposal, to make Uganda an “international pariah.”
And the editorial notes the role that some American evangelicals—notably Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge, and Don Schmierer—have played in helping “to feed this hatred.” And worse: as the editorial states, those American evangelicals who have helped to feed the hatred now manifesting itself in Uganda claim to have acted in accord with “Bible-based family values.”
The Times editorial ends by encouraging the American government to inform Uganda that it will impose economic sanctions on the nation, if it carries through with the proposed legislation to make being gay susceptible to the death penalty. And to inform Uganda that it will be “shunned internationally” if it takes this step . . . .
Powerful words, unfiltered and true ones. Barbarism. Hate begets hate. A nation that carries through on such a plan ought to be an international pariah that is shunned internationally.
It’s a shame that such powerful, unfiltered, true, and above all, moral statements are being made by an editorial in the mainstream media, when the leaders of many churches remain silent. Notably by Pope Benedict, whose word would carry tremendous weight in a nation that is nearly 42% Catholic. And whose own life story ought, one would think, to have taught him how dangerous and shameful the silence of people of faith is, when a nation sets itself on the path of murdering despised minority groups.
