1 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It was the gay pride parade today in New York, 2 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 which capped a great month of significant advances for marriage equality in America. 3 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [The white house is granting new benefits to same sex couples, 4 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 including those who live in states where gay marriage is against the law] 5 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [To date, nineteen states in the district of Columbia have legalised marriage equality and the momentum continues] 6 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That's right, we are nearly half way to full nationwide marriage equality, 7 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 which means it's about to become a question of which state is going to be last. 8 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Who could it possibly be, Mississippi? 9 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We don't know. We don't know, Mississippi. 10 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It could be anyone, Mississippi. 11 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now, I know it's a little premature, 12 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 but I do think this might be one of those moments where we're allowed to feel great about this country. 13 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Marriage equality is sweeping the nation and America did it! 14 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Strike up the band! Bring out the rock and roll George Washington! 15 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and the Americake(?) 16 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Yes! I see no reason why this feeling is ever going to end! It's fantastic! Yes! 17 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 OK, OK, OK! hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on... 18 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 because unfortunately this month has also brought less good news from other countries. 19 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [There's great controversy over the new UN General Assembly president, 20 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Uganda's Sam Kutesa's been elected to the largely ceremonial role. 21 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But thousands have signed a petition against the appointment because of Uganda's harsh laws on homosexuality] 22 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Yeah, calling Uganda’s laws ‘harsh’ doesn’t really do them justice. That’s like calling Stalin ‘a bit of a grump'. 23 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Or the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire a ‘whoopsie-doo’. 24 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Or the Titanic a ‘disappointing vacation.’ 25 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Because.. let's take a moment to remind ourselves about what Uganda's laws actually contain. 26 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [On Monday, the president of Uganda signed a sweeping anti-gay bill into law. 27 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It makes it illegal simply to be gay in the country and imposes harsh prison sentences for offenders.] 28 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So the moral arc of the universe is long and it bends away from Uganda. 29 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And the law isn't just putting gays at risk at imprisonment. 30 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Since it passed the Ugandan legislature, 31 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 the number of recorded acts of persecution has increased between 750% and 1900% from previous years. 32 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It’s gotten to the point where people from the dark ages could build a time machine, 33 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 travel to 2014 Uganda, step outside and go "Ah shit, it didn’t work. OK, nice try, get back in." 34 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now, you might wonder: how can the UN allow a representative of the Ugandan government, 35 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 which has also been accused of corruption and the brutal suppression of dissent, to be in charge of their General Assembly. 36 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [Sam Kutesa is chosen without a vote. 37 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The selection is done on geographical rotation and African countries had already agreed he'd be their candidate.] 38 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Oh that's fine then! So it's just their turn! 39 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Essentially, the UN apparently works according to the same principle as family movie night, 40 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 where even if your little sister picks 'My little pony friendship is magic princess twighlight sparkle' for the third time, 41 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 ya have to watch it cos it's her f***ing turn. 42 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The fact that, in the twenty first century, 81 countries have laws outlawing homosexuality is incredibly depressing. 43 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Although, in a way, it shows how lucky we are to live here. 44 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Because remember, when it comes to advances in marriage equality, America did it! 45 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Am I right, cheerleaders?! Yes? 46 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 47 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's never gonna blow up in our face. USA! USA! USA! 48 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 OK, OK, ah.. This feels so good. 49 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I mean, just out of interest, where did Uganda get the idea to come up with such hateful laws? 50 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [Uganda has had laws against homosexuality for virtually all the past century. 51 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 They were introduced in the old British colonial days.] 52 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Whoopsie-daisy. 53 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I've gotta be honest, being British is sometimes a little like being an alcoholic. 54 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 When someone says you did something awful, you find yourself going 55 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 "Honestly, I don't even remember doing that, but yeah, probably, probably. I'm a dick, I'm a dick. 56 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What'd you want me to say?" 57 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 OK, so fundamentally, it's the British people's fault. 58 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But, you know, I live in America now, so I've still got a pretty warm feeling inside me, 59 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 unless.. someone is about to take that away from me. 60 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [The irony, gay rights activists say, is that it was a small group of American Evangelicals, 61 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 who came to Uganda speaking out against homosexuality, which was already illegal, 62 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 that really took the persecution of the LGBT community to a new level.] 63 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Wait.. so.. what you're essentially saying is, America did this.. 64 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 No! No! No! Get back in that cake! 65 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Get back in that cake! Get outta here! 66 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 All of you, get out of here and think about what you've done! 67 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Shame on you! Shame on you! 68 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Shame on you! Shame on you! 69 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 OK, OK, so. Turns out, American anti-gay activists were in Uganda in the run up to the passage of the law. 70 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And let's meet just one of them: Scott Lively. 71 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now, if that name rings a bell, 72 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 you may know him as one of those far right Christians who go on TV and say things like this.. 73 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [I think Mr. Obama may well be homosexual himself.] 74 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Hey, hey, hey, hey. That's clearly wrong. 75 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's not Mr. Obama, it's President Obama. 76 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 President Obama is a homosexual, get it right! 77 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Have some respect. 78 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now, if you live in Massachusetts, 79 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 you may also know Scott Lively as that crazy guy currently running for governor, 80 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 who's attempting to take back the rainbow as a symbol from the gays by promoting this song. 81 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [The rainbow belongs to God, untouched by evil desires] 82 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Wow, wow! I feel like if Kermit ever hear that song, he would immediately insist on one fewer songs about rainbows. 83 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Look, Scott Lively is clearly an idiot, and luckily, over here we just get to laugh at him. 84 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [You're never gonna stop AIDS until you stop treating homosexual sodomy as a civil right 85 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and start treating it as a form of conduct to avoid] 86 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [Laughter] 87 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The guy's material is killing out there. 88 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Hey, what's up with how HIV's only transmittable between homosexuals, huh? 89 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Is this on, huh? This guy knows what I'm talking about. 90 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Unfortunately though, in Uganda, it is a very different story. 91 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [In America, he's a nobody. But in Africa, this extremist guy becomes the spokesperson 92 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and he's able to address the entire parliament for five hours.] 93 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I don’t know what is more shocking here: 94 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 that he addressed the parliament at all or that he did it for five hours. 95 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Because, listen, if your hard-on for homophobia lasts five hours, you need to seek medical attention. 96 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And he didn't just stop there. 97 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Scott Lively spoke on Ugandan TV and gave seminars attended by Ugandan government officials. 98 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And here is where Scott Lively is about to get considerably less funny. 99 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [Increasingly, lesbians are being molested by other women. 100 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's actually becoming more and more common in the United States.] 101 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [How dare you say that homosexuality and pedophilia are equated? Well, they are equated.] 102 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [They have very little sense of mercy.. The Rwandan stuff probably involved these guys.] 103 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [These were the Nazis. The Nazis.] 104 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It’s like he ate the most offensive package of magnetic poetry and then vomited it all over his audience. 105 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And then later that year, Uganda's homosexuality bill was introduced 106 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and, for the record, Lively says he doesn't approve of it and disclaims any influence over it. 107 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [I do not support, and never did support, the harsh penalties in terms of long prison sentences. 108 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I don't believe in that, I never have.] 109 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Oh no, no, of course not. 110 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You were simply saying "Look guys, gay people are dangerous insidious Nazis.. 111 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 do with that information what you will. Lively out. Lively out." 112 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Why back off now Scott? Own it! 113 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 If God hates gays as much as you think he does, 114 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He's gonna be pretty pissed at you for not seeing this thing through! 115 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And it's not just Scott Lively, 116 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 one of Ugandan's most prominent anti-gay preachers is a pastor named Martin Ssempa. 117 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Let's listen in on one of his lovely sermons. 118 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [Do you know what they're doing in their bedroom? 119 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I did research and I gathered their information. 120 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now they start off by touching each other's genitals and smelling each other..] 121 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I've gotta say, for an anti-gay pastor, that man clearly has very quick access to a lot of fetish porn. 122 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Very very swift, just "Oh, there we go!" 123 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now, Martin Ssempa is not American. He has in the past, however, 124 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 received funding from teh Canyon Ridge Christian church in Las Vegas and the US government 125 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 which allocated his organization $40,000 for abstinence education, 126 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 which he presumably responsibly spent on gay porn to show during sermons. 127 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But if you want a single sound-bite 128 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 that sums up the depressing scale of the American cultural influence on Ugandan homophobia, it is this.. 129 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 [In the beginning, it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.] 130 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Yeah, that's not a Ugandan saying. 131 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Let me give you three names that are not especially common in Africa: Adam, Eve and Steve. 132 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 133 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So clearly U.S. groups recognized the market for homophobia stateside was dwindling and so tried to sell it somewhere else, meaning that Africa isn't just where we send our losing team's Super Bowl shirts, it's also where we now send our losing political philosophies. 134 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 135 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 136 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 137 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999