United States law maker, Tim Walberg has sternly encouraged Ugandan leaders to resist U.S and Western pressure to roll back the Anti-Homosexuality law.
Every once in a while, the right in the U.S. cannot help but look longingly at countries where repression of LGBTQ is a matter of law. But Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican and a former Bible salesman went one step further.
He actually took a trip to Uganda to meet with leaders there and urged them to “stand firm” in support of their “draconian” anti-LGBTQ law.
The bill, which was signed into law by President Yoweri Museveni on May 30th, 2023 attracted serious condemnation across the Western World and the United States in particular, with some lawmakers terming it as “so horrific” and against fundamental human rights and freedoms.
Senator Walberg took the trip in October this year, but it escaped notice until Salon revealed it this week. He was the keynote speaker at the Uganda’s National Prayer Breakfast.
President Museveni, was among those present for Walberg’s speech. He said that Walberg’s presence and speech showed that some Americans “think like us.”
In the speech, Walberg called upon Ugandan leaders to defy efforts to force the African nation to roll back the vicious law, which makes “aggravated homosexuality” punishable by the death penalty.
In retaliation to passing the law, the U.S. dropped Uganda from the AGOA trade pact and issued visa sanctions against some Ugandan officials. The World Bank has also responded to the same, by halting all loans to Uganda.
“Though the rest of the world is pushing back on you, though there are other major countries that are trying to get into you and ultimately change you, stand firm. Stand firm,” Walberg counseled the attendees.
Walberg cited the Bible as justification for a law to kill people. “Worthless is the thought of the world,” Walberg said. “[W]orthless, for instance, is the thought of the World Bank, or the World Health Organization, or the United Nations, or, sadly, some in our administration in America who say, ‘You are wrong for standing for values that God created,’ for saying there are male and female and God created them.’”
“Whose side do we want to be on?” Walberg continued. “God’s side. Not the World Bank, not the United States of America, necessarily, not the U.N. God’s side.”
He explicitly aligned himself with President Museveni and the Ugandan legislators who overwhelmingly passed the bill. Referring to the Ugandan president, Walberg said, “He knows that he has a Parliament, and … even congressmen like me who will say, ‘We stand with you.’”
A former Bible salesman, Walberg has always been a standard issue religious conservative in Congress. HRC designated him a member of its Hall of Shame in 2014.
This year he was the author of a provision in which he called the Parental Rights Over the Education and Care of Their (PROTECT) Kids Act, part of a larger GOP bill that went nowhere. Under Walberg’s provision, schools would be required to get parental consent before changing a student’s pronouns or preferred names.
His trip to Uganda was sponsored by the U.S. National Prayer Breakfast, a formerly bipartisan group that has recently taken a hard-right turn. The new head of the group is Caroline Aderholt, a former leader Concerned Women of America, a long-time anti-LGBTQ group.
Aderholt’s husband is Robert Aderholt, a Republican from Alabama who once tried to stop adoption agencies from allowing gay people to adopt.
Despite facing backlash for his controversial remarks, expectations of condemnation from fellow Republicans remain low. His actions underscore the alignment of certain Christian nationalist sentiments within the party, marking a continuation of divergent ideologies even within the GOP ranks.
Walberg’s unabashed advocacy for Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act raises global concerns and serves as a stark reminder of the increasingly polarized stance on LGBTQ rights, highlighting the complex intersections of religious beliefs, political ideologies, and international relations.
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