An African response to Clinton's pro-LGBT statement

Ugandan activist, FRANK MUGISHA, who took over from the murdered activist, David Kato, was thrilled at Clinton's statement last month. For him, it couldn't come too soon.

WHEN Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced this month that the United States would use diplomacy to encourage respect for gay rights around the world, my heart leapt. I knew her words — “gay people are born into, and belong to, every society in the world”— to be true, but in my country they are too often ignored.

The right to marry whom we love is far from our minds. Across Africa, the “gay rights” we are fighting for are more stark — the right to life itself. Here, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people suffer brutal attacks, yet cannot report them to the police for fear of additional violence, humiliation, rape or imprisonment at the hands of the authorities.

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I was distressed beyond belief when I heard so many Western activists sneering at her statement, and claiming "the U.S. is just trying to burnish their image in time for the elections. They're getting involved where they don't belong. And don't have credibility anyway. Look what they're doing here there and yon." What assholes. It's easy to be jaded when you're sitting pretty in New York or London or LA.

For better and worse, what the U.S. does has a huge, outsized impact. We have tremendous power to improve life for others. And tremendous power to screw it up. When U.S. or British politicians get it wrong, we should rip them a new one, but when they get it right we should applaud like crazy and push them to go even further.

Especially in the case of LGBT rights in Africa, where American fundamentalists are actively spreading homophobia. It's only right that other Americans take responsibility and work against it.