Uganda’s harsh anti-gay bill is now law

Homosexuality in UgandaHIVLGBT has been punishable by life imprisonment since colonial Britain outlawed it in 1950. But today’s lawmakers have deemed that too lenient. A new law signed on May 26th by President Yoweri Museveni provides for the death penalty for some same-sex acts, including those that might spread . Other clauses envisage long prison sentences for “promoting” homosexuality or even for renting a room to a gay couple. “We have a culture to protect,” said Anita Among, parliament’s speaker. “The Western world will not come to rule Uganda.”It is not just Ugandan homophobes who cloak themselves in anti-colonial garb. In Ghana, the preface to a similar bill warns of “the infiltration of foreign cultures”. Some Kenyan politicians, who hope to pass a law of their own, have described rights as “a second colonisation” designed to shrink Africa’s population.