Born Again in the United States of Uganda
This is my last newsletter of the week. I think I’ve worked out that 3 a week is my max. So from now on you should just get emails on Tuesday, Wednesdays and Fridays…all going well. Don’t worry if you feel the need to unsubscribe, I’m easy either way.
Enjoy!
Excerpt from - Chapter 28 My life lesson: On valuing your time and experiences
I came back to London in 2011 to try and find funding to finish my second documentary film ‘Born Again in the United States of Uganda’ about the anti gay bill, prosperity gospel, money laundering and ..’The Family’ also known as ‘The Fellowship’: a secretive neo-conservative’ boys club who believe in free trade, abolition of abortion and being anti-gay’. The boys club consists of both Democrat and Republican politicians and others with a lot of money. They fund the national prayer breakfast in America and the national prayer breakfast in Uganda. It’s rumoured that Uganda’s president of over 3 decades is a member. The MP who wrote Uganda’s infamous anti-gay bill, Bahati is a member. In 2010 the Texas Republican party brought out a manifesto. It had striking similarities to the anti-gay bill that came out almost simultaneously.
I had been following a pastor for a few weeks who called himself Bishop Kiganda to learn more about Pentecostalism. I had interviewed a few people before about it because my sister after her daughter died become religious and hoped to become a pastor herself. I was concerned and just didn’t understand having gone to Catholic schools throughout my childhood and teenage years I had an aversion to organised religion but wanted to understand more so I could support my sister.
However, I found myself in the middle of a maelstrom just a few weeks later because Bishop Kiganda alongside Pastor Ssempa were at the forefront of the anti gay movement...
There is a web of entanglement between U.S. evangelicals, fundamentalists, conservatives and African clergy that exists to maintain a power structure and a severe homophobic agenda that serves the hard-core religious groups. This documentary will be the definitive film that shows that the American evangelical right invests heavily in financial and advocacy effort in influencing religious Africans to shun gay rights and that the Ugandan Anti-Gay Bill was an import from the West. Uganda is the test bed for Texas.
I never manged to find funding for my second documentary despite the success of my first documentary. That still hurts.
Have a good day
Sam