The Nation
4 Feb 2011
http://www.thenation.com/article/158317/no-prayers-david-katoThere were no prayers for David Kato at yesterday’s National Prayer Breakfast. Despite the best efforts of LGBT rights and progressive religious leaders, its organizers refused to honor the Ugandan gay activist, who was found bludgeoned to death in his home in Kampala in late January.
Activists wanted to highlight Kato for the same reason the breakfast’s organizers, a group called the Family, wanted to ignore him. An increasing number of Americans, including prominent politicians and journalists, are making the connection between the
Family, an elite, secretive brotherhood of fundamentalist Christian politicians; an
Anti-Homosexuality Bill under consideration in Uganda that would make gay sex punishable by death; and a culture of homophobia in Uganda so extreme that several months prior to Kato’s murder, a tabloid had splashed the headline "100 Pictures of Uganda’s Top Homos" next to his picture alongside a banner that read "
Hang them."
The Family, based in Washington, DC, has been a major background player in national and global politics for decades. In 1935, the group’s founder, Abraham Vereide, was inspired by a dream in which God told him that Christian evangelism had been focusing on ministering to the wrong people—the poor, the suffering, the down and out. Instead, God said, Vereide should go minister to other powerful men, introduce them to Jesus, and together create a leadership headed by God. Consequently, Family members’ most heartfelt prayers, as their legislative interests indicate, concern
dismantling healthcare reform, shredding the social safety net, busting unions, promoting deregulation, making abortion illegal and enriching themselves...
Locked
