Uganda lawmakers revive anti-LGBTQ bill, call homosexuality a cancer

Lawmakers in Uganda have revived a bill against homosexuality, describing it as a “cancer”. Asuman Basalirwa, an MP, made the remark as he tabled the anti-LGBTQ bill in Parliament.

“Homosexuality is a human wrong that offends the laws of Uganda and threatens the sanctity of the family, the safety of our children and the continuation of humanity through reproduction,” Basalirwa said after tabling the bill.

In 2014, Uganda’s constitutional court declared the anti-LGBTQ bill “null and void” due to a lack of a quorum, the report said.

Uganda is a largely conservative Christian country where homosexual sex is already punishable. The punishment for homosexual acts is life imprisonment, but the original draft bill had called for the death penalty for gay sex.

Uganda President Yoweri Museveni last month said the country will not embrace homosexuality and that the west should stop seeking to impose its views on it. The draft bill has been widely condemned by rights activists, who claimed that such a bill would increase violence against trans persons.