The 2009 Anti-homosexuality bill
The 2009 Anti Homosexuality Bill was pending from October 2009 to May 2011 in the Uganda Parliament. During this period, the discussion and surrounding debate changed the perception of the Ugandan LGBT community forever.
The bill’s goal was to punish anyone who engaged in “homosexuality” with a life sentence in prison, or the death penalty to anyone who engaged in various activities of “aggravated homosexuality”. Although the bill expired in May of 2011, it was popular among Ugandan voters, and the bill affected the estimated Ugandan LGBT population of 500,000+ through threatening to imprison or execute them for being in same-sex relationships.
By 2015, it was deemed invalid and unconstitutional. This feat however, required previous struggles with violence and segregation, and was not a long lasting end to homophobia and discrimination in Uganda.
Since the annulment of the Anti Homosexuality Bill in 2014, Uganda has reversed LGBT acceptance with new laws and punishments. After the bill was deemed invalid in 2014, and replaced with the original 1950 penal code, the Prohibition of Promotion of Unnatural Sexual Practices Bill was considered in Uganda.
This bill categorized homosexuality with pedophilia, bestiality and other wrong acts. Ugandan government officials were persistent in criminalizing homosexuality and same-sex relationships, and even viewed these as equal to pedophiles and bestiality.
As of January 2018, President Kaguta Yoweri Museveni made Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill a law. This law makes homosexuality a crime with a life sentence in prison. While it has been a crime to be gay since the original bill in 2009, the sentence was punitive, seven years in prison. The new law also not only criminalizes people found in same-sex relationships, but also people who promote homosexuality in any way.
