The Latest On Uganda

This Maddow clip has been getting some deserved attention:

Bloomberg reports that the death penalty and life imprisonment may be stripped from the Ugandan bill in favor of forcing gays into "counseling." Jim Burroway keeps in mind the other sections of the bill. It would:

* Criminalize all speech and peaceful assembly for those who advocate on behalf of LGBT citizens in Uganda with fines and imprisonment of between five and seven years.

* Criminalize the act of obtaining a same-sex marriage abroad with lifetime imprisonment. This penalty may be reduced in the new version, but the act still appears to be criminalized to some extent.

* Add a clause which forces friends or family members to report LGBT persons to police within 24-hours of learning about that individual’s homosexuality or face fines or imprisonment of up to three years.

* Add an extra-territorial and extradition provisions, allowing Uganda to prosecute LGBT Ugandans living abroad.

* Void all international treaties, agreements and human rights obligations which conflict with this bill.

One of his readers asks:

I wonder if they didn’t initially include the death penalty in this bill as a ploy, knowing they would bargain it away so that once it was gone the rest of the bill wouldn’t seem so extreme.

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