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Great Events from History: LGBTQ, 2nd Edition

Uganda Passes Anti-Homosexuality Act

by Robert C. Evans

Date: 2013-14

Locale: Uganda

Categories: Laws, acts, and legal history; government and politics

Key Figures

Yoweri Museveni (1944-), longtime president of Uganda

James Nsaba Buturo (1951- ), Ugandan government official who supported passage of severe anti-gay legislation.

Martin Ssempa (1968- ), Ugandan clergyman who supported strict anti-gay legislation

David Bahati (1973- ), member of the Ugandan parliament and key advocate of anti-gay legislation

Caption: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni poses before his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on the sidelines of the 70th Regular Session of the UN General Assembly in New York, New York, on September 27, 2015. (Courtesy of U.S. Department of State, via Wikimedia Commons)

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Summary of Event

Uganda, like a significant majority of other countries in Africa, is highly intolerant of same-sex relations and/or relationships. This hostility has several roots. Partly it is the result of strong religious traditions (whether Christian or Islamic); partly it is a holdover from the days when Africa was largely under the control of European colonists; and partly it is due (some claim) to indigenous African attitudes. In any case, Uganda has earned a reputation as perhaps the least gay-friendly nation in a continent largely hostile, both officially and in popular culture, to any deviations from heterosexual norms. Although polygamy and other practices (such as genital mutilation) foreign to the modern west are considered normal in some African countries, same-sex relations are widely forbidden.

In Uganda, however, in the five years leading up to passage of the law, some persons, including legislators such as David Bahati, were especially active in trying to suppress homosexuality and punish homosexuals. At the same time, some Christian Right and other anti-gay activists from the US, largely discredited in their own country, increasingly turned their attention to places like Uganda (even visiting the country to speak on this issue), thus playing a role in fomenting anti-gay sentiment there. The proposed legislation provoked widespread alarm and opposition outside Uganda, especially when it seemed that a bill being considered in Parliament would impose the death penalty on “aggravated homosexuality.” Even within Uganda, dissenting voices were heard. Indeed, even some anti-gay activists thought that the bill went too far, and President Yoweri Museveni himself criticized the legislation both before and after its passage. Yet an amended version of the bill, now imposing life imprisonment rather than death on the worst offenders, was passed by the country’s parliament in late 2013. After some hesitation based on uncertainties about the exact cause of homosexuality, President Yoweri Museveni signed the bill into law in early 2014 because he had come to the conclusion that homosexuality was a chosen behavior rather than an innate condition. However, the law was struck down in mid-2014 by the country’s Constitutional Court because the bill had been passed without a quorum, a point Moweri himself had criticized before nonetheless signing the legislation into law. The government subsequently signaled that it would not challenge the court’s judgment, although press reports indicated that efforts to pass such legislation had not ended.

Purpose of the Act

Protect the traditional family by prohibiting (i) any form of sexual relations between persons of the same sex; and (ii) the promotion or recognition of sexual relations in public institutions and other places through or with the support of any Government entity in Uganda or any non-governmental organisation inside or outside the country.
Strengthen the nation’s capacity to deal with emerging internal and external threats to the traditional heterosexual family.
To recognise the fact that same sex attraction is not an innate and immutable characteristic.
Protect the cherished culture of the people of Uganda and the legal, religious, and traditional family values of the people against the attempts of sexual rights activists seeking to impose their values of sexual promiscuity on the people of Uganda.
Protect the children and youth of Uganda who are made vulnerable to sexual abuse and deviation as a result of cultural changes, uncensored information technologies, parentless child developmental settings and increasing attempts by homosexuals to raise children in homosexual relationships through adoption, foster care or otherwise.

Objectives of the Act

Provide for marriage in Uganda as that contracted only between a man and woman.
Prohibit and penalise homosexual behaviour and related practices in Uganda as they constitute a threat to the traditional family.
Prohibit the licensing of organisations which promote homosexuality.

(excerpts from a memorandum accompanying the act signed into law by Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, on February 24, 2014; available at http://www.humandignitytrust.org/uploaded/Library/Other_Material/Briefing_on_Anti-Homosexuality_Act_2014_final.pdf

Significance

Although the Uganda legislation was eventually struck down for technical reasons, its popularity both inside and outside the parliament illustrated the widespread hostility to homosexuality in Uganda. Discrimination and even violence against gays was widespread in Uganda both before and after passage of the bill. Gay sex between males is still illegal and still carries the possible punishment of life in prison. Yet the ultimately failed legislation of 2013-14 did help call worldwide attention to the perilous situation of gays inside and outside Uganda. The fact that the legislation was so strongly opposed in many other nations and by a wide array of international organizations indicated how strong the official support for LGBTQ rights had become in many other parts of the world. Uganda was widely criticized in the media, and various sanctions were threatened if the legislation passed. While LGBTQ activism has continued in Uganda it has largely had to take place underground given the dangers LGBTQ people face there.

Citation Types

Type

Format

MLA 9th

Evans, Robert C. "Uganda Passes Anti-Homosexuality Act." Great Events from History: LGBTQ, 2nd Edition, edited by Robert C. Evans, Salem Press, 2017. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=LGBTQ2E_0305.

APA 7th

Evans, R. C. (2017). Uganda Passes Anti-Homosexuality Act. In R. C. Evans (Ed.), Great Events from History: LGBTQ, 2nd Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.

CMOS 17th

Evans, Robert C. "Uganda Passes Anti-Homosexuality Act." Edited by Robert C. Evans. Great Events from History: LGBTQ, 2nd Edition. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2017. Accessed September 15, 2025. online.salempress.com.

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