Let's Embarrass Some Gay-Bashers

Much has been made of the bill introduced in the Ugandan legislature to make being gay punishable by death. That's good. That kind of thing needs to be called out and made to be an embarrassment for anyone that attempts it, no matter if it's an international hotspot or not.

As it stands, the parliament that was debating what has been deemed the 'Kill The Gays' bill ran out of time before the end of the session. However, a new parliament has been sworn in, and they intend to reintroduce the bill. The current president, Yoweri Museveni, in power for 25 years, is starting a fourth term in the wake of a disputed election. Even without the bill, Uganda isn't in a good way.

There are, however, so many other fronts on the battle for gay rights as to be bewildering. Pick your favorite.

Here's a sampling of a few of the other fronts:

*The United Belize Advocacy Movement is challenging the constitutionality of a law making gay sex acts punishable under sodomy laws, carrying a 10-year prison sentence.

*Last Monday, Malawian president Bingu wa Mutharika gave an inflammatory anti-gay speech. In his words, "You will never see dogs marry each other. These people want us to behave worse than dogs. I cannot allow it." Unlike heterosexual dogs, of course, who, like, totally get married and everything.

*Then there's this chipper little screed out of Muhummad Qasim's keyboard from The News International in Pakistan, where things are going on that are not the continued death of Osama bin Laden. The headline reads "Homosexuality an emerging threat to health and norms in Pakistan". It goes on from there.

*Finally, there's St. Paul, Minnesota, where Bradlee Dean, pastor of ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide, was invited to give a prayer on the floor of the Minnesota state legislature. This was a mistake. Dean's "prayer" went so far off the rails that afterwards, the chaplain was brought in to do the prayer over again. Dean has, in the past, said things such as:

"Muslims are calling for the executions of homosexuals in America. This just shows you they themselves are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible of the Judeo-Christian God, but they seem to be more moral than even the American Christians do, because these people are livid about enforcing their laws. They know homosexuality is an abomination."

And:

"On average, they molest 117 people before they’re found out."

To their credit, the Republicans that invited him quickly denounced every word that came out of his mouth. Hopefully, Dean hasn't caused any lasting damage.

Random News Generator- Belize

First RNG of the new year. We are taken to Belize today, where they, after having made TIEA's (Tax Information Sharing Agreements) with Australia, Belgium, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom, they have been removed from the blacklists of the OCED and G20.

This is important to Belize because they offer themselves as a tax haven, and being on the blacklist would ruin that economic approach by preventing investors from the first world from putting their money into the country. Coming off the blacklist comes at a price, however; with the TIEA's in place, investors cannot remain anonymous, which for some is part of the appeal of doing business in Belize in the first place.

Which, to bring us full circle, is why the OCED and G20 want Belize to have the TIEA's: to limit the options for those kind of investors as much as possible. Anonymous investors in tax havens normally aren't doing nice things.

Here's the problem, though: TIEA's aren't what you would call 'effective'. The Guardian's Richard Murphy goes into more detail, but suffice to say that you can't ask for anything from prior to when the agreement was made, and come to think of it, you have to ask for information, and asking has more hurdles attached to it than a Freedom of Information Act request about Jimmy Hoffa. As Murphy puts it, "To ask a successful question under the terms of a TIEA means you already have to know the answer." The result: barely anybody asks anybody about anything.

All hat, but very little cattle, so to speak.