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Uganda Cited Dobbs in an Anti-LGBTQ Crackdown. Americans Should Worry Too.

17 13
05.04.2024

Human rights activists stand outside the constitutional court in Kampala, Uganda.Hajarah Nalwadda/AP

The ripple effects of Dobbs continue to emerge in unexpected places—and to threaten other civil liberties.

Yesterday, Uganda’s constitutional court, the country’s second-highest judicial body, cited the US Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade in its ruling to uphold the majority of a sweeping anti-gay law that criminalizes homosexuality and same-sex marriage, and allows for convictions of up to life in prison and the death penalty in some cases.

The court wrote that Dobbs constitutes a recent development “in human rights jurisprudence…where the Court considered the nation’s history and traditions, as well as the dictates of democracy and rule of law, to over-rule the broader right to individual autonomy.”

In the ruling, which came after the challenges to the “Anti-Homosexuality Act” passed by President Yoweri Museveni last year, the court repealed certain sections of the law, including those that criminalized renting property to LGBTQ people and mandated reporting “acts of homosexuality” to police.

But the fact that the court upheld most of the law obviously amounts to a massive setback for LGBTQ Ugandans—and offers a........

© Mother Jones


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