God Loves Uganda

As more and more people in the USA are getting wise to the fearmongering of the Religious Right here and in the western culture, they've decided their fertile field is in the Third World specifically Africa. The test case for them seems to be the troubled country of Uganda, known until recently as the place where Idi Amin ruled in the Seventies and hosted the terrorists in Entebbe who hijacked an El Al airliner.

Idi Amin is gone now, but the craziness lives on. And now it is being fueled by our Christian Right who have decided that this is a fertile evangelical field for their kind of religion which includes a mindless fear of gays. Not that it wasn't there before, but it's being brought to a high boil.

It is incredibly ironic for a multitude of reasons. First until the missionaries came and told them so, most Africans didn't realize gay was so evil. Secondly the colonial powers didn't unlearn their colonies about gays when they left in 50s and 60s. Third those same powers are now one by one allowing lesbians and gays to marry.

In walks the religious right and the bacillus of homophobia is injected in the body politic. The efforts of the right wing evangelicals there have culminated in one of the strictest of sodomy laws, not seen for two centuries. Life in prison for a first offense of sodomy, death for 'aggravated' homosexuality.

The Ugandan Parliament has been toying with this bill for over a year now. Other countries in Africa like Ethiopia and Nigeria have gone ahead and have passed such legislation.

But the reason that Uganda has gotten such attention is its best flirting with terrorism and because of the fact that gay activist David Kato was murdered two years ago. Kato became the face for African homophobia as surely as Matthew Shepard did in the USA. From what I know of him he was a Nelson Mandela figure for the LGBT folks of the sub-Saharan African continent.

The God of God Loves Uganda is not the creation of the religious right, it is the God who recognizes that love is the strongest force in the Universe even if it is between same gender people. This film is an expose of the other God who finds no place in his kingdom for LGBT people.

Watching documentaries such as these you wonder why people condemn themselves out of their own mouths. The news here is just reported, not laid on with a heavy hand. With some cross cutting footage from gay Ugandans and friendly clergy the impact of their statements is positively condemnatory.

The scenes of beating of gay men after a rousing sermon and a rousing session of the Ugandan Parliament that looked like a lynch mob is powerful and disturbing. As surely as Jews were made scapegoats LGBT people are the same, the parallels with Nazi Germany are too clear to overlook.

God Loves Uganda should be seen and reseen by all LGBT people and their straight allies. Every Gay/Straight Alliance group should get this for showing once it's commercially available. Every LGBT youth group like Gay/Lesbian Youth Service in my town and in all areas should have this film shown. The stories of the gay Africans will inspire you.

And this film review is humbly dedicated to David Kato that gentle soul who battled with love, reason, and information against a ruthless enemy. May his spirit triumph.

"When the righteous rule the people rejoice." One of many positions that make it hard to tell if that's coming from the Christian right or the Islamic right. . Filmed in Uganda are The Family Life Network, International House of Prayer, Lou Engle, Joanna Watson and Scott Lively. The later an American evangelist, Holocaust revisionist, with the position that homosexuals are recruiting your children, "your sons and daughters". With statements like that, these people and organizations, voiced support for imprisoning gays in Uganda (and most likely the US) as a step toward protecting society. Also relegated to their "hated" list was the UN & UNICEF because of their efforts to moderate overpopulation, disease & hunger through supporting condom use. When I listened to these apostles of hate, "The reward of sin is death, the Bible says." I was struck by an unsettling erratic, emotional frenzy and absence of language suggesting any reasoned thought - just an indoctrinated, brainwashed from childhood, robotic memorized recitation of biblical passages. Shown in the film, and well known, is how these religious corporations rationalize the extreme wealth that they generate as exemplified by IHOP's top evangelists and others having mansions (in some cases more than one). I JUST CAN'T SEE Jesus IN A MANSION! Yes, the rationale is that God has personally OK'ed it, as revealed by those who benefit.

I was also struck by how little respect there is for cultural diversity and history. A retelling of American history with the near extinction of the "savages", and for those who survived, their culture. A similar edict of conversion is seen with a missionary zeal in Uganda, made even more effective, just as it was for the Native peoples of the Americas, in being awe-struck by the god like material power of the white "helpers". Most effective in extolling that, "My God is superior to your god."

Through out the film the position of power is symbolized by being above and putting hands on a submissive person - "we know better than you, what's good for you", followed then by promises of "eternal life". The taking of poorly educated and barely surviving people by providing food and needed medical care with the ultimate intent of conversion is deceptive and dishonest.

Known as the "Pearl of Africa", Uganda is undergoing a transformation movement caused by the west. In God Loves Uganda this story follows the influence of Christian missionaries who are trying to "save" this country and implement their own religious moral beliefs. The story starts off with the church of IHOP (International House of Prayer) and then transition on the how these Christian beliefs are influencing the political, cultural, and lifestyle of Uganda. Directed by Roger Ross Williams, an interesting tale of how the American Christian Right is being exported to impact the world. I saw this film as part of the Atlanta Film Festival

A chilling inside look at the missionary efforts of the US evangelical right to instill their "bible based" homophobia into Uganda. I won't repeat the fine observations made by other reviewers, except to say this is a must see for all LGBT persons/ activists and their supporters. It's frightening, sobering and inspiring all at the same time. It's also remarkable for the amount of footage devoted to an inside look at the gatherings and meetings of the International House of Prayer. These frenetic prayer sessions, characterized by manic, crazed, jerky movements on the part of the participants, testify in a graphic manner to the lack of any real interior peace or integration on the part of the (perhaps) well meaning zealots. Here we have human beings in the grip of a fever of fanaticism, without the "peace that surpasses understanding" of the gospels. A fever of emotional certitude coming from the ego rather than from the depths of their interior being. Contrast this with the gentle peace and quiet confidence of the two gay- supportive pastors featured most prominently. These are both remarkable human beings who exude a compassion and wisdom that breathes peace throughout the entire documentary. These are persons centered deep within their interior beings where the Spirit lives and breathes, a peace that gives them such courage in the face of opposition. This is especially so for the saintly bishop, whose gentleness masks a steely will to stand up against injustice. He is even more remarkable for his quiet inner optimism and confidence in Uganda's future, despite the terrible situation in Uganda at

the moment. This is the quiet confidence of a man deeply attuned to his own inner being, listening to a higher voice not of his own making, which sustains and inspires him. This is not a man enslaved to his inner demons who drive him to peaks of frenetic emotionality. The bishop is a gentle quiet tenacious presence contrasted with the tin rattling clamor, noise and confusion of the zealots, insisting that they know that God wants this and God wants that. Remarkable, I wish the film had mover of him.

The simple contrast between the demeanor and peaceful body language of the supportive Christian pastors with the alarming intensity of the crazed zealots is one of the most powerful messages of the whole film. It's a simple rule of Christian discernment, the Good Spirit brings peace. (Apologies for the explicit Christian references, since the Spirit is certainly not limited to Christians alone, but In a documentary replete with so many young missionaries ignorant of the basic rules of Christian discernment, it seemed appropriate.)

Can a movie about evil American evangelicals and good Ugandan gays be a bad movie? I'm afraid so. There is a great movie/documentary to be made about this explosive issue, but it's not this thin effort.

This film just doesn't do justice to its subject. A film that portrays the religious right persecuting Ugandan gays pushes all the right buttons to guarantee a positive reception but there is a lot wrong with this film.

It appears to have be edited to serve as a 'gay rights' movie out of footage that was not originally intended for that purpose, because a lot of what is needed to establish the premise of the movie just isn't there. We see starry-eyed American kids being sent to Africa as IHOP missionaries and we see homophobic Ugandan pastors, but nothing establishes any sort of link between US evangelism and Ugandan homophobia. It is as if two independent documentaries - one about American missionaries and another about Ugandan pastors was pasted together.

I am most certainly not denying the existence of a link between the religious right and Ugandan policy on homosexuality. What I am saying is that this movie makes a poor fist of documenting it. The subject is terrific, the editing and photography are fine but I think this film was cobbled together to exploit interest in a fashionable subject rather being objectively good.