HARRISBURG, Feb. 6, 2014 – Anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered legislation recently considered and adopted by the African nations of Uganda and Nigeria should be condemned by the Pennsylvania Senate, state Sen. Anthony H. Williams said today.
To provide the vehicle for that public rebuke, Williams has proposed Senate Resolution 285.
Uganda’s legislature is reconsidering a proposed law that would lead to life imprisonment for repeated consensual sex acts between adults of the same gender. Nigeria adopted the “Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act” last month to legally punish not only same-sex partners but people who support LGBT people or activities.
“These African nations are taking aim at law-abiding citizens for no good reason,” Sen. Williams said. “The United States government and governments around the world, including Pennsylvania’s, must not sit quietly as they attempt to commit these atrocities.
“Nigerians and Ugandans are already being imprisoned and tortured because of their LGBT lifestyles. To hear that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni thinks the only three answers for his nation’s citizens who are LGBT is death, imprisonment or some kind of sick containment is a horrible perspective and it is one that should be stopped,” Williams said.
Sen. Williams’ SR 285 would equally condemn Uganda and Nigeria “for their grave violation of civil rights.”
The resolution would also strongly urge the Ugandan parliament to vote down its “vile and discriminatory legislation” and push for Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to “repeal Nigeria’s equally noxious prohibition on same-sex organizations and relationships.”
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