Rubio Drops LGBTQ+ Death Penalty from Report on Human-Rights Abuses
The annual State Department report on human rights dropped all mentions of Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act
The 2023 Ugandan death penalty and other punishments for LGBTQ+ people and advocates, which figured prominently in last year’s State Department report on human rights, doesn’t appear in this year’s report.
The law, the Anti-Homosexuality Act, was pushed for more than a decade by a Ugandan Christian network that’s an offshoot of one in which Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been active in the past. The group behind this network paid to send a member of Congress to Uganda in 2023 to steel the nation’s resolve against international backlash to the law.
The annual State Department reports are mandated by federal law to inventory human rights in 198 countries around the world so that Congress can make policy decisions.
In 2024, the State Department under Pres. Joe Biden named Uganda’s new Anti-Homosexuality Act in the first sentence of that year’s report on Uganda:
…the government enacted the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which expressly criminalized consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults, proscribing the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” and life imprisonment for “homosexuality.”
Last year’s report has an entire section devoted to “Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics.” Another section is called simply, “Women.”
Women aren’t mentioned in this year’s Uganda report from Rubio. Neither is the Anti-Homosexuality Act or LGBTQ+ people.
The Rubio State Department is, however, aware of Ugandan violence in violation of the human rights of LGBTQ+ people. Its travel advisory for Uganda as of today still says: “Reconsider travel to Uganda due to crime, terrorism, and laws targeting persons on the basis of sexual orientation.”
The travel advisory has undergone tweaking since Pres. Donald Trump took office. The week before his inauguration it had warnings for “LGBTQI+ persons” and “those found to be ‘promoting’ LGBTQI+.” That was downgraded to just “LGB” by February 1.
Now, even “LGB” has been replaced by references to “sexual orientation,” but the subject does still have its own section as of today, complete with explicit reference to the death-penalty law:
“Laws Targeting Persons on the Basis of Sexual Orientation
The 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA) applies to both visitors and residents of Uganda. The AHA increases the danger for persons who may be targeted on the basis of their sexual orientation, those seen as or perceived to be lesbian, gay, or bisexual, and those accused of “promoting homosexuality.” They could face fines, imprisonment, or the death penalty and may also face harassment, violence, or attacks by vigilantes or mobs.
And the travel advisory establishes that the State Department is well aware of anti-LGBTQ+ human-rights abuses in Uganda, despite their absence in the human-rights report. The travel advisory says: “Assault and harassment cases linked to support for lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons have happened across the country.”
According to the Congressional Research, in a report from this April, “an estimated 600 people were subjected to human rights violations and abuse based on their actual or imputed sexual orientation” in the first year of the new law. Those human-rights violations were omitted from the new State Department report.
Similarly, Human Rights Watch in May reported “an uptick in attacks and harassment targeting LGBT people and groups that support them in Uganda” since passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act:
…authorities have raided and suspended nongovernmental organizations, conducted arbitrary arrests and detentions, engaged in entrapment via social media and dating apps, and extorted money from LGBT people in exchange for releasing them from police custody. Ugandan authorities have also failed to hold to account individuals responsible for physical and sexual violence and online harassment against LGBT people.
The law was pushed into being by a group of Ugandan parliament members active in weekly prayer meetings and the nation’s National Prayer Breakfast. The U.S. prayer breakfast became a presidential-level scandal back in 2009 after journalist Jeff Sharlet reported on the event’s sponsors, the Fellowship Foundation (aka The Family), and their involvement with the Uganda lawmakers pushing the LGBTQ+ death penalty.
In 2023, just months after the Anti-Homosexuality Act was signed into law by Pres. Yoweri Museveni, The Fellowship paid to fly Rep. Tim Walberg (R-WI) to attend Uganda’s National Prayer Breakfast.
International sanctions were kicking in. Walberg said in his remarks, “Stand firm.”
He assured Museveni and others in attendance that they had allies in the U.S. who “think like us.”
Although Walberg predicted media pushback, he promised his Ugandan allies “I’m not gonna give in to them.” Shortly after I reported on his trip, Walberg denied he was referring to the Anti-Homosexuality Act.
Another Fellowship insider long active in Africa, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), soon after cut ties with Museveni, as I also reported. Grassley, his office told me last year “is not in touch with the Ugandan government.”
Rubio’s involvement with The Fellowship has been less public. It’s been a while since he addressed the National Prayer Breakfast.
However, in a photo posted in 2023 on Facebook, Rubio, then a senator, posed with The Fellowship’s Ukrainian liaison, Pavlo Unguryan. As I reported last year, Unguryan’s Fellowship network got him next to Speaker Mike Johnson, ultimately helping Unguryan win Johnson’s support for last year’s $60 billion aid package.
It’s not clear how active Rubio has been with The Fellowship in recent years. The State Department did not respond to my request for comment.
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Prison for life for human rights violations by proxy or a short drop and a sudden stop. Never. Stop. Punching. Nazis.
The great news is that we won’t have to travel any distance at all now to experience life in a third world country. So exciting!