The guy in the photo below is the pastor of Emmanuel Bible Baptist Church in Plymouth, Maine, Bob Emrich. Pastor Bob is also the director of the Maine Jeremiah Project, a backer of traditional values™. Those values, of course, include support for Stand for Maine Marriage, the anti-gay marriage organization in the state.
For people on his email list, Pastor Bob recently touted an Ugandan newspaper editorial endorsing a proposed law that would require the government to imprison for life someone who engages in gay sex, execute "serial offenders," and imprison straight citizens for up to three years if they do not report gay sex acts they are aware of within 24 hours.
Gay sex is already a criminal offense in Uganda, but without such draconian punishments.
David Bahati, a member of The Family, is the Ugandan lawmaker who has proposed this law. Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, has said that The Family, which has close ties to several U.S. Senators, also has close ties Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni. The Family is rabidly anti-gay and has long promoted its agenda assiduously in the east African nation.
Subject: from Uganda to Maine
Maine Jeremiah Project
I have just recently returned from two weeks in Uganda, ministering the Word among village pastors and Churches.
It was a refreshing change of pace from the last year spent on the "marriage referendum".
My trip to Uganda took me away from email, cell phones and the internet (also from electricity, running water, etc.). But I was able to see the Spirit of God working apart from the many distractions that we are faced with every day in Maine. I visited almost 20 remote villages and spent time with the believers. One of the common sentiments expressed there was that "in order to have a healthy village, there must be a strong and healthy church". That is one of the important lessons we have been learning here as well.
We will have more to say about that later.
But as I work my way back into ministry here at Emmanuel Bible Baptist Church (Plymouth) and with the Maine Jeremiah Project, I wanted to share the following article I found in Uganda's largest daily newspaper. I had tucked it into my journal and found it yesterday as I reviewed some of my scribbling.
I think it speaks for itself, but I hope you will wonder, as I do, where our own culture lost its way.
God bless,
Bob Emrich
Maine Jeremiah Project
Not every human right is right
Thursday, 26th November, 2009
Ronald Hanyerere
One Sunday morning, I was going to church when I met a lady who was so skimply dressed, one would think she was a sex worker. I initiated a conversation with her, only to find out, she was going to church.
I sarcastically told her she was smart and God would hear her prayers, but not those of the people who were going to sit near her. To my surprise, the lady responded with a verbal tirade: "It is my right to dress the way I want. Who made you judge over those whose prayers God answers?" she shouted.
This whole concept of human rights grates my nerves. It has made people un-african, mean and self-centered.
One can now shamelessly stand up and tell you: "I do as I please. You have no business in my affairs." A sodomist can now swear to you that what they do in the privacy of their bedroom does not concern the public.
No wonder when a brilliant MP comes up with a Bill against homosexuality, the human rights activists baptize him an enemy of the people.
It is high time politicians, religious leaders, cultural leaders and all concerned Africans woke up and defended the African heritage against the moral confusion of Western civilization. This civilization is eroding African moral pride.
The so-called human rights activists have hijacked the driver's seat and are sending nations into the sea of permissiveness in which the Western world has already drowned.
Every evil that has penetrated our society comes disguised as a human right and is watered by a group of elites who have attained education in the West. These elites have come back to impose on us practices that our forefathers deemed abominable.
You find them holding conferences in five-star hotels and lecture rooms delivering speeches aimed at breaking marriages in the name of human rights activism.
These activists force their unsuspecting disciples into believing that everything the West does is right. That is why they always refer to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
When the world gets compressed into a small global village in the name of globalization, it does not mean that the African should throw away what belongs to him.
Not every human right is a right, and not every right is a human right. As Africans, we should defend our heritage even when human rights activists are misleading our society. |
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Is this what Pastor Bob and his fellow fundamentalist troglodytes would like to impose on Mainers and other Americans if they had their way?
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[A big h/t to Louise at Pam's House Blend.]