Uganda and Pepe Julian Onziema Pt. 1: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

It was the gay pride parade today in New York that crowned a month of important advances for equal marriage in the United States. The White House is giving new benefits to same-sex couples, including those who live in states where same-sex marriage is against To date, 19 states in the District of Columbia have legalized marriage equality and the push continues. That's right, we're almost halfway to full marriage equality nationwide, which means it's about to become a question of which state will be

last

. Could it be Mississippi? We don't know, we don't know Mississippi. It could be anyone. Mississippi, yeah, oh, I know it's a little premature, but I think this might be one of those moments where we can feel good about this. country equal marriage is sweeping the nation and the United States played the band three on the rock George this play waits because unfortunately this month has also brought less good news from other countries there is a great controversy about the new president of the UN General Assembly Uganda's Sam Kutesa has been chosen for the largely ceremonial role, but thousands have signed a petition against the appointment due to Uganda's harsh laws on homosexuality.

Yes, calling Uganda's laws harsh doesn't really do them justice. It's like calling Stalin a little grumpy or the triangular shirt-dresser. A factory layoff or the Titanic a disappointing vacation because let's take a moment to remember what Ugandan laws really contain. On Monday, the President of Uganda signed a sweeping anti-gay bill into law that makes it illegal to simply be gay in the country and imposes harsh prison sentences on offenders, making the moral arc of the universe long and far away from Uganda and the law not only puts homosexuals at risk of being imprisoned since it passed the Ugandan legislature the number of recorded acts of Persecution has increased between 750 and 1900 percent over previous years.

It's gotten to the point where people from the Middle Ages could build a time machine. Traveling to Uganda in 2014. Go outside and see that it didn't work. Okay, try logging back in now. One might wonder how the UN can allow a representative of the Ugandan government, which has also been accused of corruption and brutal repression of dissent, to be in charge of its General Assembly Sam Kutesa is elected without a vote selection is made by geographical rotation and in Africa the countries had already agreed that he would be their candidate. Ah, okay, then it's his turn.

Basically, the UN apparently works on the same principle as a family movie night, where even if your little sister chooses My Little Pony: Friendship it's the magical princess Twilight Sparkle. the third time you have to watch it because it's half a king's turn the fact that in the 21st century 81 countries have laws prohibiting homosexuality is incredibly depressing although in a way it shows how lucky we are to live here because remember when it comes to progress in marriage equality America did it, I'm right, cheerleaders in our faces, okay, this feels so good, we're just not interested.

Where did you get the idea to come up with such hateful laws? Uganda has had anti-homosexuality laws for virtually every year.

last

century they were introduced in the former British colonial era whoopsie-daisy. I have to be honest, being British is sometimes a bit like being an alcoholic when someone says you did something horrible and you find yourself saying honestly, I don't even remember doing it. that, but yeah, probably, probably I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot, what do you want me to say? Okay, fundamentally it's the British people's fault, but you know I live in America now, so I still have a pretty warm feeling inside me.

Unless someone is about to take that away from me, the irony that gay rights activists say is that it was a small group of American evangelicals who came to Uganda speaking out against homosexuality, which was already illegal, that really took the persecution of the LGBT community to a new level. level, wait, so what you're essentially saying is that America did this, no, no, go back to that pie, go back to that pie, your finger, get out of here, all of you, get out of here and think about what have made. Shame, shame, shame, okay, so it turns out that American anti-gay activists were in Uganda in the run-up to the law's passage and let's meet just one of them, Scott Lively, now if that name sounds familiar to you .

You may know him as one of those far-right Christians who go on TV and say things like this. I think Mr. Obama may well be a homosexual hey hey hey hey that's clearly wrong, it's not mr. Obama, it's President Obama, President Obama is a homosexual, get it right, have some respect Chuck, if you live in Massachusetts you may also know Scott Lively as that crazy guy who is currently running for governor and was trying to bring back the gay rainbow symbol by promoting this evil song oh, I feel like if Kermit ever heard that song, he would immediately insist on one less song about rainbows.

Look, Scott Lively is clearly an idiot and luckily we can only laugh at him here, you're never going to. Stop AIDS until you stop treating homosexual sodomy as a civil right and start treating it as a form of behavior to avoid the kids the material is killing. Hey, what's up with how HIV is only transmitted between gays? It's not all this, huh, huh, this guy knows it. Unfortunately, what I'm talking about, although in Uganda it's a very different story, in the United States there is no one, but in Africa this extremist guy becomes the spokesperson and can address the entire permit for five hours.

I don't know what's more shocking there. but he addressed Parliament or he did it for five hours because listen, if his erection due to homophobia lasts five hours he needs to seek medical attention and he didn't stop there. Scott Lively spoke on Ugandan television and gave seminars. which was attended by Ugandan government officials and this is where Scott Lively is about to get considerably less funny. Lesbians are increasingly abused by other women. It is becoming more common in the United States. Do you dare to say that homosexuality and pedophilia are well equated? They already claim to have a fertile sense of mercy the Rwandan stuff probably involves these Nazi vents the Nazis it's like he just ate the most offensive package of magnetic poetry and then vomited it all over his audience and then later that year, The anti-homosexuality bill was introduced in Uganda and for the record, Lively says she does not approve of it and denies any influence over it.

I do not and have never supported harsh penalties in terms of long prison terms. I don't believe in that, I never have. No, of course not. I was just saying look guys, gays are dangerous, insidious, Nazis do with that information what you will live, animated designs, ask why back off now, Scott is in it, if God hates gays as much as you think he will be mad So much for you for not seeing them. This is over and it's not just Scott Lively one of Uganda's most prominent anti-gay preachers it's a pastor called Martin Semper, let's listen to one of his lovely sermons.

Do you know why they greet them? I did my research and gathered information together, I'll side with an anti-gay paste that the man clearly had access to a lot of fetish porn very quickly, oh there we go Martin semper is not American, he has done it in the past , however, received funding from the Canyon. Ridge Christian Church in Las Vegas and the US government, which allocated his organization $40,000 for abstinence education, which he presumably spent responsibly on gay porn to show during sermons, but if you want a single snippet of sound that sums up the depressing scale of American cultural influence. about homophobia in Uganda, is this at the beginning, it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, yes, that is not a Ugandan saying, let me give you three names that are not especially common in Africa, Adam, Eve and Steve, like this that the groups clearly recognized the market. because homophobia in America was decreasing and that's why I tried to sell it elsewhere, which means that Africa is not only the place we send our losing Superbowl team's jerseys, but also the place we now send our losing political philosophies and although the US is now imposing sanctions in reaction to these laws, this is clearly a problem that Uganda will have to solve for itself and here we can have a small glimmer of hope because in researching this story we found a clip from an interview on a Ugandan morning show. with a transgender human rights activist named Pepe Julian

onziema

Pepe Julian

onziema

thank you for coming, thank you for the good morning, why are you gay?

Okay, so let's get right to it, then there's no straight-to-topic warm-up quiz and that set the tone for that hour-long moderation marathon from activists, don't you think gays, homosexuals, lesbians and should transgender people be reoriented instead of receiving all this kind of recognition because society seems to consider them as unnatural as people who maybe have lost someone? you're sitting with me right now no one's not sure is that the case, I'm not sure, but I'm baffled, perfect, yes, but that's the point, if you're baffled by something, you don't automatically throw it in jail, otherwise the American prisons would be full of Keurig coffee machines: first the water, then the cup?

Do you remove the lid? Did someone put this witchcraft behind bars? It's wrong, it's morally wrong to give credit to Pepe Onziema, he somehow kept his cool the whole time when you recruited boys and girls for this gay activism. There is no recruitment of youth or adults or anything like that. What is recruitment? First of all. When you asked me about recruiting. What do you mean by recruitment? I mean try to get them into your system and teach them what to do. to do it, we don't do that, how can a human being maintain that level of composure and say: we don't do that, instead of what's wrong with you, it got worse, it got worse, no one is with us? apart from Martin Semper who arrived with a bag full of vegetables and many questions they begin to use gadgets like bananas they use colors they use bananas they use cucumbers and other metallic ones and they themselves put on the music these other instruments you use our The House of Vegetables, aha, and It can be severe like stitches.

Pepe azeema is the Gandhi of Uganda, he is you, Gandhi, and I am truly honored to say that he will actually be joining us here

tonight

, please, welcome to the food, please, okay, yes, thank you. so much to be here I guess my first question has to be why are you gay? Oh look, so I thought that's how all the interviews started. The key question is: do you think this law would have been enforced if it weren't for our interference? The answer is. No, it would not have happened if it were not for the influence of the United States.

That's why I say that for many years we have had a criminal court and we have done research to find out how many people have actually been convicted under the criminal system. code that we have and there's probably just one line of cases and the person didn't serve the sentence so no, but it's not about whether the laws are enacted, it's about hate speech around exactly in many ways that can cause more physical harm than the threat of prison sentences, of course, with the Penal Code, many of us have suffered under the fixation, you know, the way it is presented to the public, many of us have suffered evictions, beatings in the arbitrary street. arrests and so on, however, that increased, changed with your influence or your always doubling down, you know, I sowed that seed as a British person and now, as someone who lives in the United States, I fertilized the exit from that seat, so you are welcome. and I'm sorry in both cases, I'm sorry, it's not enough.

I love the fact that we just saw some incredible restraint during that interview and it's with going to the movies, yeah, you need to say soul, so are you safe in Uganda? I guess the answer to that is really not true no really I'm not exactly safe but to some extent I am safe because I maintain my position that I'm not going to change and I'm afraid I'm not going to flee the country and the fact that you know about me is a form of protection for me. I look over my shoulder every day but there's no place I'd rather be there and make sure the security I need actually happens in the country, yeah that's just I can't tell you how much I can't tell you how much I appreciate you for being here and how much I admire you for returning to Uganda.

What changes, go ahead, Michael, would you mind staying and us? We will talk more on the web. Okay, I'm sure that would be great. If you want to see an extended interview of this online, go down here. My enormous thanks to Pepe Julian Onziema. Have an excellent

week

. We're leaving next

week

.We're rocking, have a great week, good night.