Second, in all the media-driven hysteria about the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill one glaring fact has been consistently omitted. The fact is that Ugandan law is typical of most African law in that it tends to be very harsh in the letter, but very lenient in the application. I doubt very much that anyone arrested under the new law (if it passes) will receive anything close to the jail terms allowed for in the bill.

Third, and most importantly, there is one easy, guaranteed method of protecting oneself from ever being subject to the Anti-Homosexuality law in Uganda: Don't Commit Sodomy! We all seem to forget, in the dense propaganda haze of American popular opinion, that homosexuality is defined by voluntary sexual acts. Homosexuals are no more compelled to commit sodomy with each other than a married man is compelled to cheat on his wife.

In my opinion, the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill is still too harsh in the letter. I would prefer something closer to the approach several American states have taken toward marijuana: criminalise it but minimise the penalty and turn a blind eye toward discrete violations. Indeed, this would be my prescription for dealing with homosexuality (and all sex outside of marriage) in the United States. This would preserve the basic freedom of choice for people who choose to inhabit various sub-cultures out of the mainstream, yet provide the larger marriage-based society with the legal power to prevent sex activists from advocating their lifestyles to children in the public schools or to flaunt their sins in "pride" parades through the city streets.

However, since I didn't write the Ugandan bill and have no power to redraft it on my own terms, and since the alternative to passing this bill is to allow the continuing, rapid, foreigner-driven homosexualisation of Ugandan culture, I am giving the revised Anti-Homosexuality Bill my support.