NEWS & ANALYSIS
Science Misused to Justify Ugandan Antigay Law On 24 February, Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, signed a draconian AntiHomosexuality Bill into law, after 2 months of declining to do so. Science, he says, changed his mind—in particular, the findings of a special scientific committee his Health Ministry had appointed earlier in the month. “Their unanimous conclusion was that homosexuality, contrary to my earlier thinking, was behavioural and not genetic,” Museveni wrote to President Barack Obama on 18 February, in response to Obama’s pleas that he not sign the bill. “It was learnt and could be unlearnt.” But some scientists on the committee are crying foul, saying that Museveni and his ruling party—Uganda’s National Resistance Movement (NRM)—misrepresented their findings. “They misquoted our report,” says Paul Bangirana, a clinical psychologist at Makerere University in Kampala. “The report does not state anywhere that homosexuality is not genetic, and we did not say that it could be unlearnt.” Two other committee members have now resigned to protest the use of their report to justify the harsh legislation, which mandates life imprisonment for “aggravated homosexuality,” such as sexual acts with a minor, and prison terms of 7 to 14 years for attempted and actual homosexual acts, respectively. The law was f irst introduced into Uganda’s Parliament in 2009, but withdrawn after widespread objections to provisions that could have included the death penalty. As he signed the new version, passed by Parliament
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last 20 December, Museveni claimed that “mercenaries” were recruiting young people into gay activities. The 11-member committee, including officials from the Ministry of Health, scientists at Makerere University, and other medical researchers, was charged with reviewing scientific evidence about the causes of homosexuality. The first draft of the report concluded that “there is no definitive gene responsible for homosexuality”; that homosexuality is not a disease nor abnormal; that being gay can be influenced by environmental factors such as culture and peer pressure; and that both homosexual and heterosexual behavior need “regulation” to “protect the vulnerable.” Dean Hamer, a geneticist emeritus at the National Institutes of Health who discovered the first evidence that homosexuality probably has some genetic basis (Science, 16 July 1993, p. 321), says “what’s fascinating about the Ugandan report is that it gets so much right about the science of sexual orientation.” The committee’s report even referred to a recent, genome-wide study confirming Hamer’s original findings. But things began to go wrong for the Ugandan scientists when they presented their findings to Museveni, Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, and more than 200 NRM members of Parliament at a 14 February NRM meeting. Shortly afterward, NRM put out a press release, signed by NRM spokeswoman Evelyn Anite, summarizing the scientific committee’s findings and declaring that
28 FEBRUARY 2014
VOL 343
SCIENCE
Published by AAAS
www.sciencemag.org
–MICHAEL BALTER
CREDIT: ASSOCIATED PRESS
SCIENCE AND POLITICS
Museveni would now sign the bill “since the question of whether one can be born a homosexual or not had been answered”— supposedly in the negative. Anite denies charges that the press release distorted the panel’s findings: “I did not change anything. What I put there is what the scientists said,” Anite told Science. (Anite also asked the reporter on this story if he was a “homo” when he sought further clarification.) Yet the press release combined and altered the committee’s findings that “Homosexuality is not a disease” and “Homosexuality is not an abnormality” to read that “Homosexuality is not a disease but merely an abnormal behavior which may be learned through experiences in life.” This change made several committee members see red. “We didn’t say homosexuality is an abnormality,” Bangirana says. Another member, who asked not to be identified, adds that “many people out there have ignorantly misinterpreted our position, taking it for an outright support for the bill.” As a result, committee members Seggane Musisi, a psychiatrist at Makerere’s School of Medicine, and Eugene Kinyanda, a mental health researcher for Uganda’s Medical Research Council, tell Science that they have now resigned from the committee and dissociated themselves from the report. “History is replete with lessons from the mixing of science and politics,” Musisi says. The committee has now produced a final report, dated 23 February—the day before Museveni signed the legislation. It eliminates the language about regulating homosexuality because that “is easily abused or interpreted badly,” Bangirana says. The new report also goes into more detail about the relative roles of nature and nurture in producing homosexuality, concluding that both are involved, although nurture could play a bigger role. Some committee members say they were used to provide cover for a fait accompli. “Regardless of what our report would say, this bill was going to be signed,” Bangirana says. J. Michael Bailey, a psychologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who led the recent replication of Hamer’s original study, adds that no matter what the science says, it cannot be used to justify punishing gays: “There should be no link between how homosexual people are treated and what causes homosexuality.”
Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 14, 2015
Setback. Protests and science failed to stop Uganda’s antigay law.
Science Misused to Justify Ugandan Antigay Law On 24 February, Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, signed a draconian AntiHomosexuality Bill into law, after 2 months of declining to do so. Science, he says, changed his mind—in particular, the findings of a special scientific committee his Health Ministry had appointed earlier in the month. “Their unanimous conclusion was that homosexuality, contrary to my earlier thinking, was behavioural and not genetic,” Museveni wrote to President Barack Obama on 18 February, in response to Obama’s pleas that he not sign the bill. “It was learnt and could be unlearnt.” But some scientists on the committee are crying foul, saying that Museveni and his ruling party—Uganda’s National Resistance Movement (NRM)—misrepresented their findings. “They misquoted our report,” says Paul Bangirana, a clinical psychologist at Makerere University in Kampala. “The report does not state anywhere that homosexuality is not genetic, and we did not say that it could be unlearnt.” Two other committee members have now resigned to protest the use of their report to justify the harsh legislation, which mandates life imprisonment for “aggravated homosexuality,” such as sexual acts with a minor, and prison terms of 7 to 14 years for attempted and actual homosexual acts, respectively. The law was f irst introduced into Uganda’s Parliament in 2009, but withdrawn after widespread objections to provisions that could have included the death penalty. As he signed the new version, passed by Parliament
956
last 20 December, Museveni claimed that “mercenaries” were recruiting young people into gay activities. The 11-member committee, including officials from the Ministry of Health, scientists at Makerere University, and other medical researchers, was charged with reviewing scientific evidence about the causes of homosexuality. The first draft of the report concluded that “there is no definitive gene responsible for homosexuality”; that homosexuality is not a disease nor abnormal; that being gay can be influenced by environmental factors such as culture and peer pressure; and that both homosexual and heterosexual behavior need “regulation” to “protect the vulnerable.” Dean Hamer, a geneticist emeritus at the National Institutes of Health who discovered the first evidence that homosexuality probably has some genetic basis (Science, 16 July 1993, p. 321), says “what’s fascinating about the Ugandan report is that it gets so much right about the science of sexual orientation.” The committee’s report even referred to a recent, genome-wide study confirming Hamer’s original findings. But things began to go wrong for the Ugandan scientists when they presented their findings to Museveni, Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, and more than 200 NRM members of Parliament at a 14 February NRM meeting. Shortly afterward, NRM put out a press release, signed by NRM spokeswoman Evelyn Anite, summarizing the scientific committee’s findings and declaring that
28 FEBRUARY 2014
VOL 343
SCIENCE
Published by AAAS
www.sciencemag.org
–MICHAEL BALTER
CREDIT: ASSOCIATED PRESS
SCIENCE AND POLITICS
Museveni would now sign the bill “since the question of whether one can be born a homosexual or not had been answered”— supposedly in the negative. Anite denies charges that the press release distorted the panel’s findings: “I did not change anything. What I put there is what the scientists said,” Anite told Science. (Anite also asked the reporter on this story if he was a “homo” when he sought further clarification.) Yet the press release combined and altered the committee’s findings that “Homosexuality is not a disease” and “Homosexuality is not an abnormality” to read that “Homosexuality is not a disease but merely an abnormal behavior which may be learned through experiences in life.” This change made several committee members see red. “We didn’t say homosexuality is an abnormality,” Bangirana says. Another member, who asked not to be identified, adds that “many people out there have ignorantly misinterpreted our position, taking it for an outright support for the bill.” As a result, committee members Seggane Musisi, a psychiatrist at Makerere’s School of Medicine, and Eugene Kinyanda, a mental health researcher for Uganda’s Medical Research Council, tell Science that they have now resigned from the committee and dissociated themselves from the report. “History is replete with lessons from the mixing of science and politics,” Musisi says. The committee has now produced a final report, dated 23 February—the day before Museveni signed the legislation. It eliminates the language about regulating homosexuality because that “is easily abused or interpreted badly,” Bangirana says. The new report also goes into more detail about the relative roles of nature and nurture in producing homosexuality, concluding that both are involved, although nurture could play a bigger role. Some committee members say they were used to provide cover for a fait accompli. “Regardless of what our report would say, this bill was going to be signed,” Bangirana says. J. Michael Bailey, a psychologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who led the recent replication of Hamer’s original study, adds that no matter what the science says, it cannot be used to justify punishing gays: “There should be no link between how homosexual people are treated and what causes homosexuality.”
Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on June 14, 2015
Setback. Protests and science failed to stop Uganda’s antigay law.
