Following a hearing yesterday, several members of Congress have written to the Presidents of the US and Uganda to protest the latter’s impending legislation to make homosexuality an executable offense.

The US Government’s Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission heard evidence and testimony against the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill yesterday afternoon. Congress has responded by petitioning Presidents Barack Obama and Yoweri Kaguta Museveni on this “international human rights issue,” calling the bill “reprehensible,” and “the most extreme and hateful attempt by an African country to criminalize the LGBT community.”

Addressing President Museveni, they wrote:

This egregious bill, which represents one of the most extreme anti-equality measures ever proposed in any country, would create a legal pretext for depriving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Ugandans of their liberty, and even their lives. We respectfully urge you to take swift action to prevent this law, which we are concerned could have a chilling effect both on human rights and on bilateral relations between our countries.

The full text of the letters, along with a press release, can be found at the website of Wisconsin Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin.

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