Tag Archives: David Kato

The Rev. Canon Dr. Martin Brokenleg does some more David Kato handwringing

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From here:

It is not Anglican requiem tradition to eulogize the deceased, although it would be easy to do so in the case of David Kato. He was Anglican, openly gay and worked for human rights for sexual minorities.  Born in Uganda, he lived for some time in South Africa, a safe place for gay and lesbian people.  Then in 1998, the same year that Matthew Shepard, also Anglican, was beaten to death in the United States, David returned to Uganda to work for justice for gay and lesbian people. He founded Sexual Minorities Uganda and was known internationally for his work.

At around 2 pm on Jan. 26, 2011, David was beaten to death with a hammer. He was in his own home in Uganda. No ordained Anglican clergyperson came to bury him. Instead, a lay reader was sent to lead the funeral.  When the lay reader denounced gay persons, some in the crowed cheered. Then a young lesbian named Kasha seized the microphone and spoke about David’s work. Eventually, an Anglican bishop not recognized by the Church of Uganda because of his support for gay folk, spoke a comforting word.

What Brokenleg doesn’t bother to mention is the real reason David Kato was murdered. It wasn’t because someone who hates homosexuals decided to take it out on Kato. Nor was it because Kato was a Christian or a gay Anglican: it was because Kato had promised to pay a criminal to have sex with him and after the deed was done, didn’t pay up.

I can’t help wondering whether the Rev. Canon Dr. Martin Brokenleg has as much sympathy for the thousands of Christians who are being martyred, tortured, arrested and turned out of their homes – usually in Islamic nations – or whether they hold little interest for him since they are being persecuted for their faith not their sexual proclivities. We never hear “requiems” for them, so, presumably not.

The Anglican Church of Canada continues to claim that it isn’t obsessed with deviant sex. Who believes them? Not me.

Rowan Williams: "words have results"

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He’s right: it’s a shame that Rowan so often employs words to obscure what he is thinking rather than clarify it, though.

Rowan Williams places the blame for David Kato’s murder squarely on those in Uganda who routinely vilify homosexuals with – words.

From here:

Dr Williams said Mr Kato’s murder illustrated the fact “words have results”.

“You cannot go around sharing information about the identity of proposed lesbian and gay persons and urging people to ostracise them or worse ‘Hang Them’ as in the headlines of one of the Ugandan newspapers,” he said, speaking to the media at the Emmaus retreat centre in Swords, Co Dublin.

“You cannot do that without taking responsibility for the consequences. Language which demonises gays and lesbians has consequences.”

As it turns out, it is quite probable that Kato’s murder had less to do with inflammatory anti-homosexual newspaper articles than it did with a criminal whom Kato paid – not enough apparently – to have sex with him.

From here:

“We have taken him to Mukono Magistrate’s Court to record an extrajudicial statement,” the source said. “He told us that he killed Kato after he failed to give him a car, a house and money he promised as rewards for having sex with him,” the source said.

Kato is alleged to have bailed the suspect out of Kawuga Prison on January 24, where he been remanded on charges of theft of a mobile phone. The suspect told police that he stayed with Kato for two days. He accused the deceased of having sex with him and promising to pay him during the period.

The suspect allegedly told the police he got tired of having sex with Kato but the latter would not have any of his excuses. “The suspect said he left the bedroom, went to a store and picked a hammer which he used to hit him [Kato] while he was still in bed,” the source said.

Rowan’s statements aren’t particularly surprising: at the Dublin Primates’ meeting no-one was allowed to talk about homosexuality at all, so the subject had to be introduced somehow.

Katharine Jefferts-Schori laments:

His murder deprives his people of a significant and effective voice, and we pray that the world may learn from his gentle and quiet witness, and begin to receive a heart of flesh in place of a heart of stone.

Not only that, of course: those imprisoned for stealing mobile phones have one less person to bail them out as a gentle and quiet witness – or for sex.

The Ugandan murder rate is around nine people per day which means that on the day Kato was killed, eight other people were too. There were no denunciations from prominent Anglicans for the other eight murders; so much for inclusion.