News
Uganda anti-gay law challenged in court
Yoweri Museveni signed statute last month
Ugandan human rights advocates on Tuesday petitioned the Ugandan Constitutional Court to block an anti-gay law the country’s president signed last month. (Photo courtesy of Ellen Sturtz)
Ugandan LGBT rights advocates Frank Mugisha, Julian Pepe Onziema and Jacqueline Kasha Nabagesera are among those who signed onto the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law’s challenge of the so-called Anti-Homosexuality Bill that President Yoweri Museveni signed into law on Feb. 24.
They argue in their petition to the Ugandan Constitutional Court that the statute violates the right to equality and privacy outlined in the country’s constitution. The advocates said the anti-gay law also discriminates against people with HIV and disabilities and imposes a “disproportionate punishment for the offense (of homosexuality) in contravention of the right to equality and freedom from cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.”
The activists also contend Ugandan parliamentarians approved the measure late last year without the necessary quorum.
“The spirit of the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2014, by promoting and encouraging homophobia, amounts to institutionalized promotion of a culture of hatred and constitutes a contravention of the right to dignity,” reads the petition. “The Anti-Homosexuality Act 2014, by encouraging homophobia and stigmatization, is in contravention of the duty of the government to respect, protect and promote the rights and freedoms of persons likely to be affected by the act.”
The activists’ petition asks the court to block enforcement of the law and prevent Ugandan media outlets and websites from publishing the names and pictures of those who are open about their sexual orientation or suspected of being gay.
Jeffrey Smith of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, which honored Mugisha in 2012 and whose president, Kerry Kennedy, discussed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill with Museveni in January, welcomed the petition to the Ugandan Constitutional Court.
“The Anti-Homosexuality Law clearly violates a host of constitutionally protected rights in Uganda, not to mention international human rights standards pertaining to nondiscrimination, the right to privacy, and freedom of expression,” Smith told the Blade on Tuesday. “These rights belong to every Ugandan citizen, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, and the government has a duty to not only protect these rights, but to both promote and advance them as well. Today’s constitutional challenge is therefore a significant step forward in the struggle for the respect of basic human rights for all Ugandans.”
The Obama administration announced after Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law that it has begun reviewing its relationship with Uganda. U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who met with Museveni in January during a trip to the East African country with other members of Congress, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay are among those who also criticized the measure.
“I certainly disagree with the controversial legislation that Uganda may enact in the coming days,” Inhofe told the Washington Blade before Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
Ugandan LGBT rights advocates and their supporters maintain U.S. evangelicals exploited homophobic attitudes in the East African country and encouraged lawmakers to approve the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. A federal judge in Massachusetts last August ruled a lawsuit the Center for Constitutional Rights filed against Scott Lively on behalf of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a Ugandan LGBT advocacy group of which Mugisha is executive director, can proceed.
Lively described the law as “overly harsh on its face,” but “typical of African criminal law across the country” to the Blade during a press conference last month at the National Press Club in downtown Washington.
“Poor countries with limited criminal justice systems tend to rely on the harshness of the letter of the law to be a deterrent to criminals,” said Lively. “In practice, the sentencing is usually pretty lenient. Kenya, for example, has the death penalty for burglary, but burglars are definitely not being executed there.”
Rehoboth Beach
Women’s FEST returns to Rehoboth Beach next week
Golf tournament, mini-concerts, meetups planned for silver anniversary festival
Women’s+ FEST 2026 will begin on Thursday, April 9 at CAMP Rehoboth Community Center.
The festival will celebrate a remarkable milestone in 2026: its silver anniversary. For 25 years, Women’s+ FEST has brought fun and entertainment for all those on the spectrum of the feminine spirit. There will be a variety of events including a golf tournament, mini-concerts and happy hour meetups.
For more information, visit Camp Rehoboth’s website.
Belarus
Belarusian lawmakers approve bill to crackdown on LGBTQ rights
Country’s president known as ‘Europe’s last dictator’
Lawmakers in Belarus on Thursday approved a bill that would allow the government to crack down on LGBTQ advocacy.
The Associated Press notes the bill would punish anyone found guilty of “propaganda of homosexual relations, gender change, refusal to have children, and pedophilia” with fines, community labor, and 15 days in jail.
The House of Representatives, the lower house of the Belarusian National Assembly, last month approved the bill. The Council of the Republic, which is the parliament’s upper chamber, passed it on Thursday.
President Alexander Lukashenko is expected to sign it.
Belarus borders Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Lukashenko — known as “Europe’s last dictator” is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kazakhstan is among the countries that have enacted Russian-style anti-LGBTQ propaganda laws in recent years.
Vika Biran, a Belarusian LGBTQ activist, is among those arrested during anti-Lukashenko protests that took place in 2020 after he declared victory in the country’s presidential election.
District of Columbia
How new barriers to health care coverage are hitting D.C.
Federally qualified health centers bracing for influx of newly uninsured patients
Washington, D.C. has the second-lowest rate of people who lack health insurance in the country, but many residents are facing new barriers to health care due to provisions of the sweeping federal law passed in July, which threatens access for thousands.
Changes to insurance eligibility and the rising cost of premiums, which kicked in for some in October and others more recently, are expected to leave many more patients uninsured or unable to afford medical care. Federally qualified health centers, including D.C.’s Whitman-Walker Health, where 10 to 12 percent of patients are uninsured, are bracing for an influx of newly uninsured patients while facing their own financial challenges.
Even in D.C., where uninsured rates have been among the lowest in the country, changes brought on by the passage of the Republican mega bill (known as the “Big Beautiful Bill”) will have major effects.
The changes from the bill affect Medicaid, which is free to low-income patients, and subsidies for insurance that people buy on the health insurance exchanges that were started under the Affordable Care Act, which were allowed to expire on Dec. 31.
Erin Loubier, vice president for access and strategic initiatives at Whitman-Walker Health, says some Whitman-Walker Health patients have received notices about premium increases, including several who say the increases are up to 1,000 percent more than they were paying.
“That is like paying rent,” she says. “We live in an expensive city, so any increases are going to be really, really hard on people.”
Whitman-Walker Health and other healthcare providers are expecting the changes to have multiple effects — some patients may not be able to afford coverage or may avoid going to the doctor and allow health conditions to worsen because they can’t afford care, and many more will be seeking care who don’t have insurance.
“I’m worried that we’re going to not just have people who can’t get care, but that they delay care until they’re really sick, and then the care is not as effective because they might have waited too long, and then we may have a less healthy population,” Loubier says.
Loubier says delaying care, and serving more people without insurance has major implications for Whitman-Walker Health and other health centers serving the community.
“There’s going to be a lot of pressure on us to try to find and raise more money, and that’s going to be harder, because I think all organizations who provide health care are going to be facing this,” she says.
The U.S. health care system is the most expensive in the world, and has much higher out-of-pocket costs for individuals. But in other countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and many others, health care is much less expensive — or even free.
Even though the U.S. has a high-priced healthcare system, critics say there are still ways to bring down costs by forcing insurance and pharmaceutical companies to absorb more of the costs, rather than transferring the costs to patients.
“In the U.S., they end up trying to cut costs at the person’s level, not at the level of the different corporations or structures that are making a lot of money in healthcare,” said Loubier. “Our system is so complicated and there is probably waste in it, but I don’t think that that cost and waste is at the ‘people’ level. I think it’s higher up at the system level, but that is much, much harder to get people to try to make cuts at that end.”
Ultimately at Whitman-Walker Health, healthcare providers and insurance navigators are planning to help with everyday necessities when it comes to healthcare coverage and striving to provide healthcare in partnership with patients, said Loubier.
“The key here is we’re going to have a lot of people who may lose insurance, and they’re going to rely on places like Whitman-Walker Health and other community health centers, so we have to figure out how we keep providing that care,” she said.
(This article was written by a student in the journalism program at Bard High School Early College DC. This work is part of a partnership between the Washington Blade Foundation and Youthcast Media Group, funded through the FY26 Community Development Grant from the Office of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.)
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Belarusian lawmakers approve bill to crackdown on LGBTQ rights
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