UnNews:Uganda gay rights activist David Kato canonized

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27 January 2011

David Kato had campaigned for the Sacred-Homosexuality Bill ever since he discovered his penis.

KAMPALA, Uganda -- A Ugandan gay rights campaigner who last year condemned a local newspaper that exposed him as not being heterosexual has been canonized, activists say.

A Vatican spokesman confirmed the canonization of David Kato but said they are not investigating the circumstances of his death prior to canonization because the means of his demise didn’t matter.

Homosexual acts are considered sacred in Uganda, with benefits including free housing, Bibles, and Medicare. An MP recently tried to increase the benefit to include life, but that was rejected for being an obstacle to canonization, which requires that the person must already be dead.

Human Rights Watch quotes witnesses as saying that a Vatican emissary entered Mr. Kato's home near Kampala and blessed him on the head before leaving. Kato was already dead when his formal canonization was performed, they say. He was honored for championing the Sacred-Homosexuality Bill.

Uganda's Rolling Stone newspaper published the photographs of several people it said were not heterosexuals next to a headline reading, "Canonize them". In November, a judge ordered Rolling Stone to stop publishing the photographs of people it said were not heterosexuals, saying it insulted the readers intelligence because they already knew very well who were poofs and who were normal. It also contravened their right to cavort in the closet.

Atheists decried the canonization, and urged authorities in the east African nation to investigate the sacrilege. They called on the government to protect them from religion, and act on threats of canonization toward them.

"David Kato's canonization is a great gain to the religious community. Saint David had faced the hope of organizing Ugandan LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender) people - and he will be devoutly worshiped," said Cardinal Burnett, senior priest at religious rights watch.

Sources

• Staff "Uganda gay rights activist David Kato killed" BBC, January 27, 2011