But when asked if a still-lengthy prison sentence is too harsh for homosexual acts, Sozi says homosexuality is “a corruption of the highest degree. . . . It is an offense we should not think of as light.”

For Americans looking for a simplistic picture of Uganda’s controversial anti-homosexuality bill, Ugandan pastor Peterson Sozi complicates the landscape. Sozi, a well-respected church leader in Uganda, founded First Presbyterian Church in Uganda three decades ago and escaped the brutal persecution inflicted against Christians by dictator Idi Amin. Sozi is on the African advisory board for World Reformed Fellowship, a U.S.-based organization that includes prominent, Reformed theologians and denominations.

These days Sozi has a new project: serving on an anti-corruption task force dedicated to passing the anti-homosexuality legislation that criminalizes—and could impose the death penalty—on same-sex behavior.

The pastor is quick to underscore that the task force is urging officials to drop the death penalty from the bill. But he still supports an amended version, including stiff prison sentences, saying the legislation is necessary to prevent the spread of a gay agenda in Uganda.

The bill has garnered intense international criticism since Ugandan parliament member David Bahati introduced it in November. World leaders like President Barack Obama and church leaders like mega-church pastor Rick Warren have condemned it.

Others have laid blame for the bill outside Africa, focusing on three American evangelicals who conducted an anti-gay conference in Uganda last March.

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