The US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee will soon be taking up a resolution, co-sponsored by Senator Al Franken, condemning the “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” currently making its way through the Ugandan Parliament. However, Senator Amy Klobuchar still hasn’t joined her colleague in signing on to the bill because, according to one Minnesotan LGBT rights lobbyist, her office says “she hadn’t heard from Minnesotans about it.”
A committee spokesman said the March 23rd meeting where the resolution was to be considered was postponed due to the debate and vote on healthcare reform, but would be re-scheduled soon.
“Since when did sanctioned genocide and witch hunts need a popularity voice,” the Rev. Laurie Crelly wrote to TheColu.mn. “What about doing the right thing to oppose oppression. As our senior Senator I would expect her leadership on such matters. Senator Franken signed it immediately.”
Crelly lobbies Congress on LGBT rights issues for the Human Rights Campaign, and was one of the Minneapolis organizers of the American Prayer Hour, 18 prayer breakfasts held across the country concurrently with the National Prayer Breakfast to protest links between organizers of the National Prayer Breakfast and the Ugandan MP behind the anti-queer bill.
On its own, Senate Resolution 409 would add very little to the United States’ efforts to kill the bill, which has become popularly known as the “Kill Gays Bill” for mandating the death penalty for people who have sex multiple times with members of the same sex and HIV-positive people who have sex with members of the same sex, among others. Both the bill’s sponsor, MP David Bahati, and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni have been linked to “The Family,” a secretive, US-based international association of evangelical Christian politicians, who also organize the National Prayer Breakfast. Because Klobuchar served as the co-chair of the National Prayer Breakfast, showing her ties to The Family, she would be a powerful voice in helping pressure the Ugandan government kill the bill.
Senator Klobuchar’s office did not return calls seeking comment on this story.
I just don’t know what to say about this.
It is just a shame that she feels the need to procrastinate because “she has not heard the voice of the Minnesota populace”? Really? Maybe as an elected offical for the state, she can hem and haw all she wants, but as a human being, she should be outraged at this and should have beat Senator Franken to the front of the line to sign this bill.
Very sad to read this …. if she needs to hear from Minnesotans then we must all give her a call. Thank you to Senator Al Franken for sponsoring this bill. We are so fortunate to have Al Franken in the Senate!
I’m disappointed to hear this. Amy Klobucher has always seemed (at least to me) to be a supporter of gay rights, and her lack of action on this issue is simply unacceptable. Does she require a phone call from someone in Minnesota before she makes any decision? Condemning this terrible bill in Uganda seems like an obvious choice, and not something that requires a great amount of thought and debate.
[…] TheColu.mn reported earlier, Klobuchar hasn’t signed on to a bill condemning Uganda’s “Kill Gays” bill, a piece of legislation that has garnered the support of Reps. Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum, James […]
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