A hero of mine ~ Chavela Vargas, who at 91 is still performing to large audiences.

Speaking to Madrid’s El País newspaper in October 2000, Vargas declared, “I’ve had to fight to be myself and to be respected. I'm proud to carry this stigma and call myself a lesbian. I don't boast about it or broadcast it, but I don't deny it. I've had to confront society and the Church, which says that homosexuals are damned. That's absurd. How can someone who's born like this be judged?"

"I didn't attend lesbian classes. No one taught me to be this way. I was born this way, from the moment I opened my eyes in this world. I've never been to bed with a man. Never. That's how pure I am; I have nothing to be ashamed of. My gods made me the way I am.”

Until last night's interview with David Bahati I was appalled with the legislative measure in Uganda against Gays and Homosexuals and I still am.
After listening to your guest I could understand some of his fears have substance after reading several articles an hour before in the HuffPost.
The articles were about pedophiles and human trafficking by Military Contractors in Serbia as well as the Taliban's use of underage boys to take the place of a woman for personal pleasure.
If I understand the Taliban point of view it is okay because they don't love the boys.
Children being spirited away across the border out of Haiti after the Earthquake.
The list is longer.
I understand why Mr. Buhati would fear for the children.
This may be an opportunity to strip away a fallacy that has been a safe hiding place for fear and prejudice for a very, very long time.
A junction for debunction.
Fact: Gays and Homosexuals are not pedophiles.
Fact: Homosexuals and Gays are not human traffickers.
Fact: Gays and Homosexuals are not child molesters.
Fact: Men are.
If activities are to be targeted for legislation then be sure the right ones are named.
The distinction needs to be understood by all. It never has.

This was a bit mind-numbing.

Buried in Mr. Bahati's tap dancing about exactly how this alleged recruitment in Ugandan schools works, is the single concrete detail he mentions: children are being taught that a "man sleeping with a man is okay." So if you merely advocate tolerance, you are a gay recruiter. And a danger to Ugandan children, and an enemy of the Ugandan family and the Ugandan state. And anyone who so teaches must be punished with life in prison or even death. But Mr. Bahati is not a hater.

Is 254politician an associate of Bahati? Not that there is any point in arguing with ignorant bigots...

I could not bring myself to watch this interview. I admire Maddow for doing it, but this man's mere existence nauseates me. I don't know how you try to have a rational discussion with someone who believes you (in this case, Maddow) should be executed, not because you have harmed anyone, but because the people you fall in love with are adults of the same sex.

...

BTW, are there *heterosexual* angels? Why would angels--who are presumably immortal and do not procreate--have a sexual orientation, or, for that matter, sexual organs of any kind?

But, again, there's no reasoning with bigots. <shrug>

Hi there please go to( comcast .net) billionaires giving away wealth

has anyone ever tried to get a grant, they do give but to organizations , charities, I sent over 1000 emails trying to get help, have toxic mold in the ceiling of my home . husband had stroke , I'v had cancer twice, where is the help

This man needs to be educated about the difference of child abuse and homosexuality. Since I understand he was orphaned at 3 years of age, perhaps he was a victim of abuse. Abuse is what has to be fought, not homosexuality, whether the perpetrator is straight or gay, man or woman. I imagine that in Uganda as in the far East children are targeted and victims of abuse. This has nothing to do with homosexuality and the fact that he does not see this and is in a position of power in Uganda is frightening.

I hope that Rachel corrects Mr Bahati. His reference of Jesus is completely false. Jesus never spat a word about homosexuality. Not a single word. I think it is getting dreary how it always returns to religion. As a believer in the saving grace of Jesus and a gay man, this rhetoric offends me. In any case you can not legislate morality, it is impossible to do that and be prosperous. Please correct Mr Bahati.

Ignorance is only cured by Truth, and the more Light of Truth that all of us shine on the Darkness of Ignorance, the better; However, the Truth can only be Offered - Whether it is Accepted is up to Each Individual Person.

For whatever it's worth...

ps: Is a written transcript of this full interview available, or will one be available soon, and if so, when and where?

Thank you

(with apologies for so many posts; I get carried away at times)

I don't think it was smart to let this person spew lies and venom without challenge. There are many people in the world who are easily duped. And this man should have been challenged on everything he said.

He loves gay people? Planning to kill and imprison others is not loving.

He follows God's law? Does he follow kosher and have ten wives and stone adulterers? Like most fundamentalists, he cherry picks God's law in order to act out his hatreds.

Gays promote homosexuality? No. They just try to live their own lives. That is not promoting anything.

Gays recruit? This lie has been told forever. And God's law has a name for making false accusations without evidence. It's called bearing false witness. Actually, it's not just a name, it's a Commandment.

Fundamentalists always lecture us about the bible, and yet they know almost nothing about scripture.

Again, he should not have been allowed to ramble on here. There are too many people who could be fooled by this.

Dear Rachel,

Although I watched the full interview and I agree with Rachel on most of what she said, I think this was a waste of time. Hear me out and here is why:

I was born in Iraq, a country till recent days (2003) had similar Laws to the one proposed in Uganda. I am Canadian and although gay rights doesn't affect my life I am happy to be in a country that treat all people with respect and equality under the law regardless of who they are.

Unfortunately, this is not the way it is in many countries. See Link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory

A lot of countries have existing laws that have death penalty already in it and no my dear Rachel there is no crime against humanity trails for those and the Western world actually have a good relation with two of them (Saudi Arabia & U.A.E.)

So the notion that the world will react to this all depend of how much does Uganda worth for every western country's economy. Foreign Policy is dictated by wealth and not by righteousness.

Sorry again Rachel but I'd rather you make interviews with the people in your country that are for such Laws. Now those you can prosecute for supporting something that is illegal in the US, but somebody from another country I don't think we will have luck changing them

David Bahati is a member of the Ugandan parliament. He collaborated with the American C-street conservative lobby to draft a bill for Uganda that calls for the execution of all gay people, along the lines of what Hitler attempted with Jews, gays and gypsies. Even knowing a gay person will be punishable with three years in prison. Bahati explains than his God’s law is that the wages of sin are death, and thus execution for sin is a beautiful and loving punishment. He claims he does not hate gays, he just wants to kill them to protect children. He believes all gays are child molesters. (The opposite is true. Most child molesters are heterosexual.) He also believes that gays reproduce by corrupting children. If he could block them from doing that, there would be no more gay people. He is quite surprised that there are people who consider him crazy or cruel. He sees himself as God-fearing and highly virtuous. He explains that he had no thoughts about homosexuality until the C-street folk opened his eyes. He is the epitome of the nightmarish Christian idiot. The C-street people have committed a megacrime, mass attempted murder. They should all be executed themselves.

Why was she allowing him to hide behind the bogus claim that this is about "God's law" for so long? She could have completely nailed him on the religious backing because nowhere in the Bible does it say to imprison gay people for life nor does it say to kill them and but in fact it, along with eating shellfish, is listed as an abomination.

Conversely unruly children, people who work on the Sabbath and blasphemers, among many others who commit non-crimes, are commanded to be killed yet I presume Bahati is not trying to get these laws to be enforced.

He should own up to being a bigot and stop blaming his god.

Correction while Lev 18:22 says homosexuality is an abomination, Lev 20:13 does command that gay men should be put to death but the point still remains that law is cherry-picked from the 613 laws of the Pentateuch and that no proposes that people live by them and only point to one if it concurs with their presuppositional position.

Bahati should be prosecuted for being inhuman.

I admire Maddow for not shouting at him; last night I was switching between disbelief and anger.

By the way, as a Christian I felt insulted and outraged by his idea that Jesus would use that language on homosexuality; for me, either one believes everyone is equal or not.

I have to support Mr. Bahati after listening to him. Rachel, it is difficult to discuss homosexuality in totality. We must address region by region, culture by culture. Many cultures or people would not entertain a gay parade like Americans do. We must begin to listen to others like Bahati who certainly have a point in case. It is true that children are abducted for sexual pleasures in many african countries. They are poor, innocent and are simply aftraid to say exactly what they feel. I was one of those children growing up in a catholic school. So I can testify that children are lured by gifts, threatened and then molested and taught this gay behaviour. Thank you , Bahati, for standing up for the Ugandan children.

You asked the wrong questions. If the wages of sin is death then what about the other sins listed in the Bible. Are all sinners to be executed! Also, you should have pointed out that being gay is genetic and not by recruitment. After all God has made all of us in his/her/its image which also in the Bible.

My research is on the chronology of human evolution. Should I be executed for being a Genesis denier? According to some of my students the answer is yes! Well when the Christian fundamentalist revolution occurs you and I will be the first against the wall.

This person needs to be added to the "no fly" list for his terrorist activities aimed at gay human beings.

He also talks about "Christian" values but I have never understood how his kind of people can label another human as being a "mistake of God" and take it upon themselves to "fix" God's mistakes by killing them.

People wanting Rachel Maddow to debate Mr. Bahati on the contents of the Bible and it's true meaning are missing the point. There is no one true meaning to the Bible. It is whatever people make of it.

Folks arguing that the Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality or that Jesus loves all people including gays are only taking what they know in their hearts to be true, that gays are human and are how they're meant to be. Jesus didn't tell you to accept gay people, your own humanity did. That's the origin of faith. People turn to religion to reinforce what they already believe to be true.

I'm not trying to say anyone's individual religious beliefs are completely irrelevant. They're relevant to the individual. I could argue that there are many passages in the Bible instructing people to have faith in their own humanity. I could argue that Jesus even taught to put faith in one's own humanity ahead of religious doctrine. Even the unclean Samaritan knows in his heart that the right thing to do when you see someone lying on the side of the road is to help him. Jesus defied religious law many times in favor of compassion, and he taught others to do the same. And the wage of that sin was indeed death.

Here's the rub: There are passages that contradict that. They cannot be reconciled. You can debate which ones are more important, but the fact remains that there are contradicting beliefs in the Bible. And people believe in those passages with as much faith as anyone else. It is a futile debate.

The key to acceptance and tolerance is not to appeal to someone's religious beliefs, but to appeal to their humanity. When the mob was stoning the adulteress, they were doing what religious law instructed them to do. Jesus did not make any appeal to their religious beliefs. He did not debate religious law with them. He instructed them to look inside themselves. And when they did, they saw that what they were doing could just as well be done to them because the truth is we are all flawed. He did not quote scripture. He made scripture.

I have no idea what Rachel's spiritual beliefs are and neither does anyone else. You can't have someone else defend your own personal religious beliefs. We're not all religious. We don't all believe in God or the Bible. And even people who do have competing beliefs. Religion is not what binds us. It is our humanity that binds us.

I'm not arguing for or against religion, just that religion is not an effective argument. And ironically even Jesus understood that if you want to change people's religious beliefs, you have to appeal to their humanity by humanizing who has been dubbed unclean whether it's the lepers, the HIV infected, the Samaritans, or the Homosexuals.

homosexual and pedophile are NOT synonyms.

I am 45 and I was born and raised in Uganda but have lived the last 13 years in other parts of the world, 6 of those years in the lovely USA. I listened to Rachel interview Mr. Bahati and I also read some of the blogs here. This is a fantastic case of two well-meaning cultures clashing. Both sides, yes even the anti-Bahati side, have not had the opportunity to get objectively informed about the others culture, traditions, environment and therefore life outlook. To implant US values on Uganda or Vice Versa can only lead to the grid-lock and misunderstanding we are witnessing.

Just so that we are clear, Mr. Bahati’s views on homosexuality are wrong and will shock most people who live here to the core. I visit my country regularly and discuss this issue with my country men and sadly I must tell you, Mr. Bahati’s view is not a lonely one at all in Uganda. This is not because Ugandans are backward, uneducated, uninformed, anti-gay etc, it simply is not the experience of the Ugandan environment. In Uganda one will more read about homosexuality in the ‘Western World’ than experience it in the Ugandan school, workplace or home.

Remember now, Ugandans like much of Africa have their own cultural values and traditions which have been passed down and are even older than the United States. Over the last 200 years Africa has experienced an invasion of foreign cultures and beliefs e,g Christianity and Islam – these things are totally foreign to Africa. How can one prove this? We look for definitions in our intrinsic African cultures where everything that is African is defined – the stars, seasons, beauty, weapons and the fruits of the earth among many other things are well defined. Christianity, Islam, homosexuality and democracy among many other things are not defined.

It is of value to note that Africa has nevertheless accommodated these foreign cultures, values and beliefs, sometimes to the direct detriment of African values. So the positive news here is that Africa does in fact eventually accommodate the diversity. For instance in Uganda marriage is broadly accepted as a two phase process, the first an event steeped in African tradition, then followed by the religious Church or Mosque event. Now try introducing homosexuality into this framework. All its merits and scientific proof aside, of course the first reaction is going to be to protect the indigenous African culture which has not defined homosexuality.

The effort should be to expose people like Mr. Bahati and persuade them not to pass bills which are dangerous. The next step would be to protect Gay people in Uganda and make their lives better (no one in Uganda kills them for being gay by the way). Slowly understanding will grow. An all-out effort to broadly promote gay rights in Uganda today is tactless and it will be strongly resisted by the population. Be smart about the approach.

Yes he argues from a religious point of view. He is however just the best known anti-gay advocate. The anti-gay position has broad support in Uganda more because of culture than Christianity. This thing is bigger than Bahati and to me the goal is making the environment better for gay people. I am not sure the anti-Bahati backlash is the best vehicle.

Why didn't Maddow focus on the abuse of children by ANYONE as the law to enact as opposed to mistreatment of gays? I'd like to know what exactly these gays were trying to do with the children, for instance. What does it mean to pay them money to take on the homosexual lifestyle? Do predators only draw children in for same sex abuse or do some draw children in for heterosexual abuse?

This is what irks me about the DADT policy. Women in the military experience a high rate of rape and sexual abuse by their male counterparts. Why is there not attention paid to that and why aren't we stepping up action on ANY person in the military who rapes, sexually abuses or creates a hostile environment through sexual harassment whether same- or heterosexually inappropriate behavior?

Maddow was rightly trying to illuminate the discrimination Bahati was exacting on homosexuals and that his reasoning "to protect the children" was weak. With his background as an orphan, I wonder if he was mistreated by a male. All these questions could be address if Maddow looked more deeply for the deeper truth.