Deja Vu All Over Again in Uganda

Sharon Slater Pushes Ex-Gay Myths

Sharon Slater runs a little known but influential organization called Family Watch International. FWI opposes reproductive rights, LGBT rights, and comprehensive sexual education with a primary base of operations in Africa. My primary interest in this post is to follow up on a Religion Dispatches article I wrote in 2012 about Slater’s influence on the Ugandan parliament and the effort to pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009.

The AHB of 2009 imposed 14-year jail sentences on any form of same-sex affection — “touching” was in the bill — as well as longer sentences for gay sex and “repeat offenders.” That bill passed in 2014 and was signed by President Yowari Museveni. It did not take effect because it was struck down by that nation’s Constitutional Court on a legislative technicality.

In 2023, an almost identical bill is back and was passed on March 31. As is allowed in Uganda, the president may express support for the bill but send it back to the Parliament for modification. In this case, Museveni sent the bill back unsigned with four stated concerns. These are spelled out in the May 2nd minutes of the Parliament (hansard) and summarized on the Parliament’s website.

In addition to some legislative edits, Museveni objected to what he perceived to be the criminalization of the “proclivity” to homosexuality. In their debate on the matter, the Parliament acknowledged that some people have been charged for looking gay and they wanted to prevent charges on that basis. The president supported criminalization of sexual behavior only, and then he urged the Parliament to add provisions for “rehabilitation” of those who have engaged in homosexual behavior. On May 2, the Parliament passed an amended version of the bill and sent it back to Museveni for signature.

Although the Parliament didn’t take up the matter of rehabilitation, the subject brings me back to Sharon Slater. Mrs. Slater is certainly persistent. She didn’t get her way in 2009-2014, but she didn’t give up.

She likes to think she is soft on the subject because she preaches “rehabilitation” (conversion therapy). She told me in 2012 that she didn’t favor violence and this is repeated at the beginning of a video on her website (see below).

However, here is the thing. Violence is still violence when the state perpetrates it. I asked her in 2012 if she considered a 14-year prison term violent and she had no answer.

I asked Mrs. Slater if she considers a 14-year jail sentence a form of violence. She said that her organization has no position on that question saying, “FWI does not dictate to nations what specific laws people should enact or protect regarding homosexual sex or whether they should fine or jail individuals.”

Apparently, however, she doesn’t mind suggesting other policies about gays. This April, she told President Museveni that she knew someone who had cured 1000 gays. He was quoted as saying he was glad to know that rehabilitation was possible. Then later he suggested that Parliament add it to the bill.

Of course, this wasn’t the first time the ex-gay story had come to Museveni’s attention. The whole Anti-Homosexuality Bill saga in Uganda was set up by that ex-gay conference back in March 5-9, 2009 in Kampala, UG. One could make the case that the fallout from that conference was the beginning of the end of the U.S. ex-gay movement. Evangelicals in this country had to really examine themselves and their commitment to the ex-gay narrative. It was one thing to recite the gay-to-straight idea when the death sentence wasn’t on the line here, but when the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (Rachel Maddow called it the Kill the Gays bill) came along with the death penalty included, things became very serious. Ex-gay ministers started to do some soul searching which eventually led to the demise of Exodus International because the narrative wasn’t true.

So now comes Sharon Slater, Floyd Godfrey, and a host of reparative therapists from the grave to promise change once again. I have seen this film before and I know how it ends.