A lot of liberals are complaining about the fact that the Anglican Communion isn't denouncing support for some real Anti-Gay Legislation in Uganda on the part of its local Bishops, and witch hunting isn't considered passe there either, since witchcraft is a punishable offense.
A bill currently before the Ugandan parliament (pdf) proposes seven year prison sentences for discussing homosexuality; life imprisonment for homosexual acts; and death for a second offence. Sober observers believe it will be passed. The Anglican church in Uganda appears to support it, and the Church of England in this country is absolutely silent. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Winchester solemnly denounce violence in the Congo, where they have no influence at all, but on Uganda they maintain a resolute post-colonial silence.
The position of the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, is more complicated, and his silence more eloquent. He is himself Ugandan by birth. One of his younger half-brothers, pastor Robert Kayanja, is a highly successful pentecostal preacher in Kampala, running a church called the Rubaga Miracle Centre. Such people are highly rewarded, and the business is extremely competitive. A rival preacher, the gloriously named Solomon Male of the The Arising Church was accused this spring of kidnapping Kayanga's assistant and torturing him for five days to get him to confess that his boss was gay and partial to young men.
The admission would have been social death. Come to think of it, under the new law, it would be physical death as well.
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