Big shout to co-Contexts blogger Kari Lerum at Sexuality and Society for bringing attention to a vile piece of legislation in the Ugandan Parliament that would allow the “crime of homosexuality” to be punishable by death.  As academics we are trained to take detached, analytical approaches to events in the social world.  Understandably, we don’t want to inject ourselves into the affairs of other nations.  This tendency to not want to be paternalistic, however, too often drifts into a tenuousness on the part of our students about the world that is both disturbing and understandable.  I wrote an op-ed about this in my local paper.

There are times when academics need to take stands.  I urge everyone to write their elected officials and ask them to put pressure on the State Department to strongly suggest to Uganda that there would be serious consequences for passing such a law.

BTW, I don’t often post links from the MSM, but Rachel Maddow did a nice job last night of challenging the notion that “gay be gone” efforts are somehow benign and harmless. Kari does a nice job of unpacking this specious argument as well:

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Homo-hatred in Uganda: a gift from US conservative evangelicals – Via Sexuality and Society.