As in other Sub-Saharan African countries, Uganda has long had a taboo against homosexuality. But the political scapegoating of gays and lesbians is a relatively recent phenomenon, one deliberately exported by the American right.
Uganda is a country where American-style evangelical Christianity is exploding, and there are close links between many American anti-gay preachers, politicians, and activists, and their Ugandan counterparts. As Jeff Sharlet has reported, Bahati, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill’s sponsor, is the secretary of the Ugandan branch of The Family, the secretive American evangelical organization whose members include Sens. James Inhofe, Jim DeMint, and Tom Coburn.