In the past week, the connections between the "Anti-Homosexuality Bill" in Uganda, The Family, and prominent American Evangelicals like Rick Warren have been well-reported. Pam Spaulding has a thorough account up at DailyKos, and The Rachel Maddow Show has been reporting the story with admirable persistence.
But the whole dark story hasn't yet been told: the Ugandan bill is also directly connected to the American movement to oppose same-sex marriage and to prominent Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical religious leaders and theologians.
The primary point of connection between these actors is The Manhattan Declaration, a religious treatise that reflects a new alignment of American Evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox religious leaders and communities. With over 290,000 signatories since its November 20, 2009 release, the declaration articulates anti-LGBT and anti-abortion beliefs in a theological context and also makes the case for civil disobedience around both issues. The authors of the declaration state a clear goal of using this document to build a movement.
Through its authorship and public endorsers, The Manhattan Declaration shows us that Catholic, Evangelical and Orthodox religious leaders and the architects of American anti-marriage campaigns are now publicly affiliated with a global movement that 1) includes a hate group and 2) is directly connected to the “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” in Uganda. In other words, they are part of a movement that is calling for the execution of gays.They are also working hard to draw new members into this movement. Manifesto's, after all, have long been used to swell the ranks of movements.
The two main points of contact between The Manhattan Declaration and the Ugandan bill are:
- Chuck Colson, a co-author of the Manhattan
Declaration and
one of more famous members of The Family, the global evangelical
network that also proudly claims
David Bahati (author of the Ugandan bill) as a member. Journalist Jeff
Sharlet has reported that American leadership of The Family not only
greenlighted Bahati's proposal to draft this bill, but also provides
ongoing funding for his work; and
- Scott Lively, a highlighted public signatory of the declaration and the founder of Watchmen On the Walls, an anti-gay organization that has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In reporting by Rachel Maddow last week, a speech that Lively delivered to Ugandan Parliamentary members in March 2009 was labeled as a catalyzing event in the drafting of the anti-gay bill.
Lively has since gone on record to American audiences expressing his opposition to the bill. I'm sure Colson would do the same. The Vatican is backpedaling furiously to distance itself from the Ugandan bill.
But the connections are there, some proudly expressed on the surface, some that require more digging to find. For example, other public signatories of the declaration include familiar figures like Frank Schubert, Maggie Gallagher, and the leaders of the Archdiocese of Portland, ME, and Philadelphia, PA -- all major players in efforts to pass state amendments banning same-sex marriage. In fact, through their combined fundraising efforts, public signatories of The Manhattan Declaration contributed 70% of the total budget of the victorious Standing for Marriage campaign in Maine (independent research).
At first glance, such connections may seem like little more than a function of global networking. But as someone who studies political strategy, I tried a simple experiment: reverse engineering the Ugandan bill and the Manhattan Declaration as tactics in a broader strategy. By doing so, one finds an approach that is remarkably like the LGBT movement's, except inverted.
Just as the LGBT movement has articulated a strategy that
involves pushing for viable, incremental gains in civil rights across the
nation (e.g. working to win marriage in Vermont, while only trying to win
domestic partner recognition in select counties in North Carolina), the
anti-LGBT movement is pushing for viable, incremental restrictions in civil
rights across the globe. In an American political context, this strategy would
call for passing anti-marriage amendments on the state level; in a Ugandan
political context, it would mean proposing that homosexuality be punishable by life in prison and
death. This movement shows a clear willingness - through direct action and affiliation - to take their core beliefs to their terrifying but all too real extreme: a call for genocide.
Do we need further evidence of global religious-political
movement that is mobilized around the goal of condemning homosexuality and
restricting the rights of LGBT people? If this sounds like the stuff of
conspiracy theories, it's not. Rather, this is what a well-organized movement
looks like in a globalized age. Are they conscious of this strategy? We can't be sure. And it doesn't really matter. Because they are pursuing it.
Documenting the many connections between a religious treatise authored in New York, New York, and a piece of legislation drafted in Kampala, Uganda, is critical because it counters two of the primary claims of the movement to oppose same-sex marriage (and by extension, full rights for LGBT people): that its condemnation of homosexuality is based on sound theology and that you can condemn a LGBT person and still love him. You simply cannot make these claims when you are directly linked - by faith, affiliation and funding streams - to those who are calling for the execution of gay people.
This movement has the right to organize and freely express religious and political beliefs. But it is at great risk that we underestimate their acumen, the scope of their agenda, and the significance of this new alliance of Catholic, Evangelical and Orthodox religious traditions.
Hatred and bigotry are comorbid with myopia and deception. Even if they can't see this strategy because they are so close to it, we can. Even if they sound convincing when they deny these links, we must shine a light on the truth.
