Jeff Allen, senior editor of Matt Barber’s BarbWire website, today defends harsh anti-gay laws in Uganda, Nigeria and Ethiopia, which he calls “maliciously mischaracterized” and “a matter of national survival.”
In Nigeria, where gay sex is illegal – and punishable by death by stoning in some Islamic states in the north of the country – a new law criminalizing gay clubs and organizations, even banning gay people from meeting in groups of two or more, has led to an official crackdown on LGBT people and encouraged vigilante violence.
Earlier this year, Uganda passed an infamous bill punishing gay activity with sentences of up to life in prison. In Ethiopia, where gay sex is also criminalized, a bill preventing the president from pardoning anyone convicted of homosexuality was recently dropped.
Yet to Allen, these laws are merely resisting “the West’s imposition of ‘sexual rights’ on these countries.” In a review of a 2012 documentary by Family Watch International that blames the AIDS crisis in Africa on Western aid that emphasizes family planning and gay rights, Allen writes:
The maliciously mischaracterized anti-‘gay’ laws in countries like Uganda, Nigeria, and Ethiopia are actually a matter of national survival. The documentary makes the case that the West’s imposition of “sexual rights” on these countries erodes their religious and cultural values, leading to social chaos through the demise of the natural family unit and the deaths of millions by AIDS-related illnesses.
