Spiked Editor Brendan O’Neill: John Kerry is the real anti-gay villain, not Uganda’s President Museveni
The editor of Spiked has used colonial racist language in an article attacking America’s Secretary of State for urging Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni to understand that homosexuality is not a choice.
In an article published by Taki’s Mag, Brendan O’Neill wrote: “The West used to send Bible-waving missionaries to Africa to try and pry open the natives’ eyes to the truth. Now it sends scientists.”
O’Neill mocked this month’s intention of John Kerry to send “experts” on homosexuality to Uganda to discuss the country’s new Anti-Homosexuality Act with President Yoweri Museveni.
Mr Kerry told BuzzFeed: “I talked personally to President Museveni just a few weeks ago, and he committed to meet with some of our experts so that we could engage him in a dialogue as to why what he did could not be based on any kind of science or fact, which is what he was alleging,” Mr Kerry said. “He welcomed that and said that he was happy to receive them and we can engage in that kind of conversation… maybe we can reach a point of reconsideration.”
In response O’Neill wrote: “US Secretary of State John Kerry has said he will dispatch scientific experts to Uganda to try and convince its president, Yoweri Museveni, that homosexuality is not a choice – as Museveni seems to believe—but is rather an inherited genetic trait.
“So we have gone from foisting God to shoving Gaga down Africans’ throats – it’s the Lady Gaga Gospel about gays being ‘Born This Way’ that the Dark Continent’s inhabitants are now being pressured to embrace. We used to teach them, among other Biblical things, that it’s a sin to sleep with a member of the same sex; now we tell them that it’s a sin to think it’s a sin to sleep with a member of the same sex.
“it’s possible Kerry has a more archaic view of gayness than Museveni does”.
O’Neill continued: “Herein lies the massively ironic rub: In taking this ‘gay is natural’ stance, Kerry is echoing an attitude to homosexuality that is older and more backward than President Museveni’s talk about gayness being a choice.
“In the early to mid-20th century, it was moralists and reactionaries who insisted gayness was some genetic twist, though back then they referred to it as the ‘gay germ’ rather than ‘gay gene.’”
He added: “Museveni, in an irony that will no doubt make the homo-hater want to take a very long shower, is more in line with the original gay-liberation movement when he talks up the ‘choice’ element of homosexuality, whereas Kerry’s scientific stuff harks back to a darker, pre-liberation view of gayness as an inherent thing that can be studied, measured, and potentially eradicated. Yep, it’s possible Kerry has a more archaic view of gayness than Museveni does.”
Brendan O’Neill is known for his anti-gay views. Appearing before the Public Bill Committee of the House of Commons in February last year, he warned legalising equal marriage in England and Wales would amount to an “attack” on “million” of heterosexual marriages.
He said: “Welcome to the era of Queer Imperialism. How long before a Western nation goes so far as to bomb a country that is insufficiently gay-friendly?”
