From Reuters via BDlive

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni wants to issue a watered-down version of a divisive anti-gay law, stripping out tough penalties for consenting adults, a ruling party legislator said on Tuesday.

The original version of the law passed in February punished gay sex with long prison terms and alarmed Western donors, some of whom withheld aid in protest.

Uganda’s constitutional court overturned the law on a technicality this month.

“We agreed to come up with a new version that doesn’t hurt our Western friends but also protects Ugandans,” legislator Medard Bitekyerezo said.

Homosexuality remains taboo in many socially conservative African societies where some religious groups have branded it a corrupting Western import.

But governments seeking to criminalise gay sex have clashed with the more liberal attitudes from the Western governments they depend on for their aid. Donors finance about 20% of Uganda’s annual budget.

Both the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) and the opposition vowed to reintroduce the law after the constitutional court ruled it had been passed without the presence of the required number of MPs in parliament.

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