Anti-Gay Bills Abroad Tied to US Evangelicals (MSNBC)

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During a Rachel Maddow Show broadcast about the anti-gay legislation signed into law this month by Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow talks with Professor Jeff Sharlet about American rightwing evangelicals’ influence on the Ugandan government and its position on homosexuality.

She asks Sharlet, the Mellon Assistant Professor of English, how important it was that “there were American activists involved in the genesis of this bill?”

“When you talk to Ugandans about homosexuality,” Sharlet says, “there’s an idea that you hear again and again, which is that homosexuality is a disease that comes from America. But they’re quick to say, but the cure comes from America, too. They see the cure in the form of these sort of rightwing ideas that they adopt whole cloth from American rightwing think tanks and American rightwing evangelical organizations.”

Listen to the full story, broadcast 2/24/14 by MSNBC.

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