Uganda has a very long and, quite permissive, and sometimes violent history regarding the LGBT community, stretching back from the pre-colonial period, through British colonial control, and even after independence.
[4] In recent history it tends to be that African leaders tend to use LGBTQ people as a scapegoat for their country's problems, as well as the perception of homosexuality as a foreign imposition, Uganda is no exception with a history of persecution and violence against LGBTQI identifying people's and activists with most recent example being the very well-publicized case of the murder of LGBTQ activist David Kato who was murdered shortly after "winning a permanent injunction against a tabloid that published names and addresses of LGBT persons in Uganda under the headline 'Hang Them.
The tension between religion and homosexuality in Uganda traces back to the contested historical event involving Buganda Kabaka (King) Mwanga and the Christian Martyrs.
Mwanga the II ascended the throne in 1884 at the age of 17 and ruled from 1884 to 1897.He inherited a court that was sharply polarized between two different religious factions, each which stood in varying degrees of alliance with external powers vying for influence and encroaching on Buganda in the intense scramble for Africa.In 1886 Mwanga II executed forty-five of his male subjects/ pages, either by burning or beheading who become the Christian Martyrs.
According to some historical accounts were executed by Mwanga in 1886, for refusing the sexual advance because of their newly adopted religion of Catholicism that “Taught that homosexuality was an abomination”.
[7] Neville Hoard emphasizes that written records only indicated that the series of actions were considered abhorrent to missionaries and colonial administrators to the point that they were unmentionable.
A British Roman Catholic Priest recounted the testimony of a Baganda man named Kiwanuka that at the time “The King practiced the works of Sodom”.
Hence the murder of the Catholic young men, Historian John Blevins notes that there is no historical evidence that suggests that Kabaka aligned himself with Islam.
In his perspective, Islam was seen in a similar light as Christianity which was that of a threat “Mwanga’s father, Kabaka Mutesa, ordered the execution of over seventy Muslim converts and thousands of his people just a decade before Mwanga executed the Christian converts.”[9] So with this perspective the Kabaka would not have learned his unnatural vice from Muslims because the Baganda court was not closely allied with Islam.
Faupel emphasizes Kabaka’s sexuality referring to the Kabaka’s “abominable vices', 'unnatural passion', 'works of Sodom', 'shameful proposals', 'unnatural lust’ and ‘evil purpose’, that allegedly haunted the corridors of power, but also more specifically to ‘the vice of sodomy’ and ‘the practice of homosexuality’, to which ‘Mwanga was an addict long before he succeeded to the throne.”[10] Thus, it was not something that he had learned from Islam, which provides evidence of pre-existing same-sex relationships present in Uganda.
There exists considerable debate and contention on this issue, but before colonization same-sex expression was not criminalized and it was with the arrival of Muslim traders and European missionaries that pre-colonial sexual practices came under attack.
They also lent support to initiatives aimed at reshaping and enforcing sexual norms in line with the patriarchal and heterosexist worldview propagated by the missionaries.
It illustrates the complex interplay between colonial influences, religious tensions, and societal attitudes toward LGBTQ individuals, highlighting the need for nuanced understanding and continued scholarly inquiry.
[25] This newly signed law makes the country one of the most dangerous in the world regarding the lives of members of the LBGT community, due to the severity of the punishment.
With this new law facing much backlash from all around the world, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni defended it by insisting that a clamp down on homosexual acts is the only way to get the HIV and AIDs crisis under control.