Chris Blattman's reading of the situation in Uganda:
Homophobia is real and widespread. Yet Uganda boasts a vibrant gay rights movement, and nowhere else in Africa have I seen a more open and public debate. Gay men and women tell their stories in the newspapers; protests and legal battles get fair and often favorable coverage in the press. Every single editorial board of every major newspaper is solidly behind the gay rights movement.
The anti-homosexuality bill, simply put, is a backlash. A backlash from a group that, in the long run, is losing the battle of ideas.
That's my impression too from gay priests and aid workers in touch with Africa's gays.
And that is why the notion that Africa will somehow avoid the deep theological struggles over gay humanity that has engulfed the West is just untrue. The implosion of the Catholic church over homosexuality is coming. Everywhere. Until the Vatican hierarchs recognize this reality, and try to see it through the lens of the Gospels instead of their own fear and self-loathing, they are taking the church over a cliff.
The church will survive its current hierarchy, of course. It has survived worse. But something is rotten in the heart of Rome and the heart pf Christianism, which has supplanted Christianity in so many places. And more and more people are recognizing it.