The World's worst place to be gay

The World's Worst Place To be Gay
- BBC Documentary

In Uganda, men and women who are homosexual goes trough every day with fear of getting beaten or even killed for being attracted to people with the same sex. Here they see homosexuality as an actual disease and death penalty for being gay is debated.

We watched a documentary to get a new perspective of the life of a homosexual in Uganda. We followed this man named Scott Milles trough his trip to – what could be - The world's worst place to be gay.
Scott Lives in the UK where people are more open minded and excepting, he can be whoever he wants to be.
It hasn’t always been like this though because in the 60s – being homosexual- was illegal and you could get in prison, get fired from your job and regularly being attacked for it. Even in the 80s gay people hid who they really were and it isn’t until lately that people are getting accepted for being homosexual although homosexuals are still hated and discriminated in other parts of the world, such as in Uganda. In Africa, homosexuality is already illegal in 37 countries and it’s being fueled by fundamental preachers, intolerant governments and homophobic politicians. People are being tortured, raped and put in prison just for being gay, and in some cases, even facing the death penalty. Homosexuality in Uganda is already illegal but a new bill is being proposed and the punishments for being gay is even more cruel. Having gay sex once would send you to life imprisonment and having gay sex more then once, would lead to execution. In this documentary Milles introduced us to a gay man from Uganda who fled to the UK after being persecuted. He tells us that if he would go back to Uganda now he could get killed, not for doing something wrong, but because of his sexuality.

Finally in Uganda, Scott starts asking people what they think of homosexuals and he receive answers like
“I HATE them”
“They should be arrested and sent in prison”
”They should be arrested, killed and everything bad should be done to –those- people”
“If I had the rights, I would kill them”

He also meets up with a few gay men in a gaybar, who tells him how hard it is to live in fear just because of their sexuality. While these men just have this one bar to go to and be themselves and relax just a little bit, Scott can have that in every bar in the UK. Unlike London, this is the only place they can go to.

He visits a gay man in Uganda who have been betrayed and ejected by his family and nobody wants to employ him, just like a lot of other gay men. That’s why gay people end up in the slums. A man is saying that when he tries to call his family-members, nobody will pick up because they feel so much hate towards him because of his sexuality. He also says that this is who he is, he is born gay, he lives like a gay person, he dies gay and nothing can change that, it’s just who he is and people should accept that. Newspapers here, are verifying and humiliating gays every single day. One guy says that homosexuality is very dangerous and that It reduces ones lifespan by twenty four years. He says that what –they- are doing is not acceptable in society.

David Kato was an activist who fought for homosexual rights. He won a court case against the news paper- rolling stones- for stop printing names of homosexuals. A few mounts later he was beaten to death in his home with a hammer.

A lesbian girl tells us about how she got harassed and how people turned their backs against her, after being exposed as an homosexual in the newspaper. This girl was raped as a child, for being homosexual. The man wanted to teach her how to sleep with men. Stoch got pregnant and she also got HIV, because of this, she tried to commit suicide.

People here thinks that being gay is something you can choose and therefor you can overcome it or get cured. Some people go, or are taken to churches. Another thing to get cured, is by witchdoctors.

So, why is Uganda so homophobic?
Ugandans think that being gay is un-African and not natural to their society. The more the gay-community have came out, the more violent has the reaction against them been. Although in the past, most African cultures accepted homosexuality. And homophobia is an relatively resent fenomonen. In western countries it was the young who lead the fight against homophobia so that is probably where the hope lies in Uganda.

Older kids are saying that they probably get their views of homosexuals from the pastor and ministers who preaches about morals and what you aren’t supposed to do. Also from teachers.

It seems like, when kids are old enough to learn, they are feed with this homophobic propaganda.

Church is a big reason for people having these kind of opinions about homosexuals. Pastors preaches about how unethical it is being gay, it’s a problem and it’s morally incomprehensible. Gay people are as bad as pedophiles. What’s scary is that the peoples views, are shaping the law. People are already beaten, harassed and arrested but it could be worse with the new bill. In this bill, death penalty is overlooked and Jail is for everybody who doesn’t turn gay people in.

This might seem like a hopeless situation but there is brave people attempting to fight back. One of the is a gay rights activist, Frank Mugisha. Even though Frank is constantly being threatened this doesn’t stop him. He even records a radio show where he talks about homosexuality against another girl who says that homosexuality is wrong. She tells him that in the beginning, it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, she compares homosexuals with aliens. People say that you cant read anywhere that its okay for a man to be with a man. They are also saying that it is unnatural because homosexuals can’t increase the population and bring generations further. Frank is desperately trying to explain that he isn’t fighting against the people in Africa, he is fighting for what’s in his soul, because he was born like this. This journey towards giving rights to homosexuals is so big in this country because there is so many people thinking that it’s good to arrest and kill homosexuals.

David Bahati, the man behind the homosexual bill with 95 % of the Ugandans supporting it. He says that being homosexual is a sinth and it’s pure evil. Bahati says that if he would have known that Scott was gay , he wouldn’t have had the interview so David stopped the interview. Bahati had also sent the police to the hotel he thought they were staying in to arrest them but lyckly he got it wrong.