Obama Religious Adviser Wants President to Speak Against Ugandan 'Kill the Gays' Bill at Prayer Breakfast

After Thursday, the National Prayer Breakfast may never be the same again -- that's if President Obama takes the advice of a panel of clergy members, including one of his own advisers, and uses the breakfast podium to denounce a murderous law endorsed by two of its overseas members. At issue is a law proposed in Uganda that would severely criminalize lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender behavior, and carry the death sentence for gays who commit certain acts.

At a news conference sponsored by the American Prayer Hour yesterday at the National Press Club, Harry Knox, a member of the President's Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Initiatives called on the president to use the podium at this week's National Prayer Breakfast to denounce Uganda's proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Conceived as an alternative to the National Prayer Breakfast, the American Prayer Hour is the title for a handful of progressive prayer events that will take place on Thursday in Dallas, Chicago, Berkeley, Anchorage, Washington, D.C., and Boynton Beach, Fla.

"You may rest assured that we have used every opportunity to talk with members of the administration staff about the speech that he's going to be making," said Knox, speaking of his fellow members of the faith-based council, "and urged them to include strong language about this issue."

Pressed by Religion Dispatches' Sarah Posner to describe the reception those urgings have met by the administration, Knox, who serves as director of the Human Rights Campaign's Religion and Faith Program, said, "First of all, actions speak louder than words, and the actions of the State Department at the direction of the president -- Secretary Clinton has taken very forceful action with the Ugandan government. It's clear to them that if this bill passes, it will have real ramifications for their relationship with the United States of America, and they have done that both quietly and publicly. So, we're pleased with the administration's response to date. And now we are asking the president to take the next step, and to speak out even more publicly, to help educate people here in this country about what's going on. That's really the leadership role that he could play this week that would be particularly helpful."

Late last year, the White House issued a statement condemning the bill.

However forceful the State Department's actions, the urgency for more pressure was brought home in the figure of a young Ugandan gay man named Moses, who addressed the media with a paper bag over his head, lest his identity become known in Uganda while he awaits the outcome of his asylum request in the U.S. Moses described how in today's Uganda, LGBT people are hunted down by neighbors, their names and addresses published in newspapers, their jobs taken from them and their families shamed.

Moses told of being forced into a heterosexual marriage by a patron who was helping him finance his education, and of losing his job when a secretary at the school where he taught outed him. He held up a copy of a newspaper known as the Red Pepper, which makes sport of publishing the names and photographs of suspected LGBT people, referred to, he said, as "our shameless men and brash women." Once your name is published on such a list, he said, you can forget about having a job.

Moses, a gay Ugandan, addressed the media at the American Prayer Hour press conference.

The harassment and assault of gays, even by authorities, is an everyday occurrence in Uganda. ""I remember when I was raped by a policeman, there was no way I could go to a doctor...," Moses said. "I decided to go to a clinic to buy sleeping pills so that I could go in my room and hide...I knew if I told the health workers [about the rape], they would, of course, not give me help. They would instead report me, and I would at least make the headlines in the newspapers."