members of the ugandan parliament present at the march conference left the meetings saying they needed to draft a new law to deal with the homosexuality issue. we learned it was not just the three american activists who had a front-row seat to what was happening in uganda. remember c street? a swanky town house in washington, d.c., run by a secretive religious group called the fellowship or the family. lots of conservative members of congress from both parties are believed to be members of the family. but they re pretty secretive. the family mostly operates off the radar. the one thing they do that everybody knows about is they run the national prayer breakfast every year in washington. other than that, they pretty much keep things as quiet as they can. that group, that american religious group it turns out has ties to the specific ugandan legislator who introduced the
in it. he s a fellow at the nice institute. his latest article inside the iron closet about underground homosexuality in russia, in the february edition of gq. jeff, mr. charlotte, it s great to see you. good to be with you, rachel. last month the president in uganda was calling this bill fascist. now he s signing it into law. what happened? it was an incredible act of sort of political jujitsu. he had been cornered by political rival who knew it was difficult for him to sign the bill because he risked the loss of foreign aid, especially u.s. foreign aid. we give over $400 million. and i think he read the u.s. right. he realized that we weren t going to actually take the money away, and that he only stood to gain from this bill as a political posture. so what the bill last month he called a fascist bill, today became the first platform of his 2016 re-election campaign.
that doesn t include the sentence of death for being gay this time but does include lots of the other prison sentences that attracted so much international outrage years earlier. the ugandan parliament passed this bill in december and then earlier today, earlier this afternoon, you uganda s president signed the bill into law, calls for lifetime imprisonment for the crime of for being in a same-sex marriage, seven years in prison for attempting to commit homosexuality. this bill at various times over the last few years has appeared to be dead but today it officially became the law of the land in uganda. upon signing the bill, uganda s president announced homosexual behavior was learned and could be unlearned which is after all something ugandan legislators have been told for years. five years in fact. exactly. hold on. there s more.
factors, like influence and so on and so forth. we don t want anybody to interfere in our internal affairs. finished. that was the president of uganda earlier today signing into law an updated version of that country s kill the gays bill. this version does not call for homosexuality to be punishable by death but rather by lifetime imprisonment. so that s a nice improvement. after uganda s president signed that bill into law today, the u.s. government plans to review our nation s relationship with uganda including a review of foreign aid to that country. joining us now for the interview is jeff sharlet who s been reporting on the ugandan bill
we don t want anybody to interfere in our internal affairs. finished. that was the president of uganda earlier today signing into law an updated version of that country s kill the gays bill. this version does not call for homosexuality to be punishable by death but rather by lifetime imprisonment. so that s a nice improvement. after uganda s president signed that bill into law today, the u.s. government plans to review our nation s relationship with uganda including a review of foreign aid to that country. joining us now for the interview is jeff sharlet who s been reporting on the ugandan bill and american evangelicals role in it. he s a fellow at the nice institute. his latest article inside the iron closet about underground homosexuality in russia, in the february edition of gq. jeff, mr. sharlet, it s great to see you. good to be with you, rachel. last month the president in uganda was calling this bill