The Rev. Rick Warren, possibly the most influential current pastor in the USA, has joined progressive pastors in speaking out against the so-called Uganda “gay death bill” and any rumors that he’s ever supported it or anyone associated with it.

Highlights — or rather lowlights — of the original anti-homosexuality bill before the Ugandan parliament included: Life imprisonment for people convicted of gay sex, the death penalty for homosexuals who are HIV positive and three years in jail for failing to report known homosexual activity.

According to Warren’s spokesperson, A. Larry Ross, the Ugandan Ethics mnister yesterday announced that the death penalty and life imprisonment were dropped from the bill.

But the revised draft will still contain provisions for three years in prison for knowing someone is gay and not reporting them to authorities (a pastoral paradox) and seven years in prison for attempting to commit homosexuality acts. In addition, the current law making homosexuality an extradition-able offense would still stand.

And so would Warren’s opposition.

Warren has been roasted online by folks who say he hasn’t stepped up to the moral challenge, or that he was linked with people behind the bill. In a press release, Warren debunks various allegations and says he’s been burning the private channels in opposition to the bill. Last night he issued a public letter to Uganda pastors, on YouTube for all who want to listen in, deploring “this terrible bill.”

AIDS in Africa through a church-based PEACE program, says he’s going public to be a moral voice and “a shepherd to other pastors who look to me for guidance.”

While he reiterates his opposition to all sex outside the marriage of one man and one woman, Warren urges the pastors to take action against the law he calls, “unjust, extreme and un-Christian.”

It would “force pastors to report their pastoral conversations with homosexuals to authorities,” Warren says. That, in turn, would destroy the work of African churches as the primary caregivers for Africans with HIV/AIDS, Warren says, “where people receive hope and help, not condemnation.

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