Authored by Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, the bill’s cosponsors include Republicans Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins.

Also signed on to the bill: Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., Sen Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.

Here’s the full text of the bill:

Calling on members of the Parliament in Uganda to reject the proposed ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill’, and for other purposes.

Whereas a bill introduced on October 14, 2009, by a member of Parliament in Uganda would expand penalties for homosexuality to include the death penalty and requires citizens to report information about homosexuality to the police or face imprisonment;

Whereas many countries criminalize homosexuality, and in some countries, such as Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan, the penalty for homosexuality includes the death penalty;

Whereas the United States, in seeking to promote the core American principles of equality and `Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,’ has long championed the universality of human rights;

Whereas religious leaders in the United States, along with representatives from the Vatican and the Anglican Church, have stated that laws criminalizing homosexuality are unjust; and

Whereas the people and Government of the United States recognize that such laws undermine our commitment to combating HIV/AIDS globally through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) by stigmatizing and criminalizing vulnerable communities: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate–

(1) calls on members of the Parliament in Uganda to reject the `Anti-Homosexuality Bill’ recently proposed in that country;

(2) urges the governments of all countries to reject and repeal similar criminalization laws; and

(3) encourages the Secretary of State to closely monitor human rights abuses that occur because of sexual orientation and to encourage the repeal or reform of laws such as the proposed `Anti-Homosexuality Bill’ in Uganda that permit such abuses.

Source: Wikipedia

Democratic Reps. Tim Walz, Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum and James Oberstar are asking President Obama to publicly condemn the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2009, a bill in Uganda that could lead to capital punishment for gays and lesbians in that country. The bill is seen by observers as an outgrowth of American evangelical Christianity, specifically the secretive evangelical political group, The Family.

Minnesota’s congressional representatives are among 90 others urging Obama to exert significant pressure on the Ugandan government to reject the bill. The letter to Obama lays out the consequences of the bill to Uganda’s LGBT population:

The Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2009 is by far the most extreme and hateful attempt by an African country to criminalize the LGBT community. It would increase the penalty for “same sex sexual acts” to life in prison, limit the distribution of information on HIV through a provision criminalizing the “promotion of homosexuality,” and establish the crime of “aggravated homosexuality” punishable by death for anyone in Uganda who is HIV positive and has consensual same-sex relations. Further, the bill includes a provision that could lead to the imprisonment for up to three years of anyone who fails to report within 24 hours the identities of everyone they know who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, or who supports human rights for people who are, to the government.

The members of Congress are pressing the president to utilize his popularity in the region to improve conditions for LGBT people not only in Uganda, but throughout Africa.

Specifically, we ask that you speak out publicly against this proposed legislation to bring further attention to the issue. Also, given your popularity in Africa, speaking out publicly against Uganda and Rwanda’s proposed anti-homosexual legislation is likely to garner more concern and attention from not only African nations but internationally. We further ask that you give diplomatic weight to your call for homosexuality to be decriminalized worldwide. While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international treaties prohibit discrimination and specify that all enjoy the right to privacy, over 80 countries currently have in place sodomy laws or other legal provisions that criminalize the LGBT community. We believe that standing up for the rights of all individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, reflects the fundamental precepts of our country. We would be pleased to learn what efforts you and your Administration have undertaken since March 2009 to help move other countries toward fully protecting the rights of all their citizens.

Here’s full text of the letter:

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We write to raise serious concerns about a grave injustice occurring in Uganda and other countries that are taking steps to criminalize or otherwise severely discriminate against their lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities. We consider this to be an international human rights issue, requiring a strong response by you and the United States.

As you are aware, Ugandan Parliamentarian David Bahati recently introduced draconian legislation in Uganda outlawing homosexuality and making “any form of sexual relations between persons of the same sex” punishable by prison or even death. Late last month, the Rwandan Parliament debated but then halted plans to pass a draft revision of their penal code that would have, for the first time, made homosexuality a crime in Rwanda. Burundi has recently added a criminal provision, again in a country where consensual conduct was not previously criminalized. These global anti-equality efforts are not in keeping with international human rights precepts, nor are they consistent with your March 2009 endorsement of calls at the United Nations to decriminalize homosexuality worldwide. For these reasons, Mr. President, we ask you to demonstrate your personal leadership, and that of our country, in seeking to deter these legislative proposals that would legalize hate in countries with which we have bilateral partnerships.

The Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2009 is by far the most extreme and hateful attempt by an African country to criminalize the LGBT community. It would increase the penalty for “same sex sexual acts” to life in prison, limit the distribution of information on HIV through a provision criminalizing the “promotion of homosexuality,” and establish the crime of “aggravated homosexuality” punishable by death for anyone in Uganda who is HIV positive and has consensual same-sex relations. Further, the bill includes a provision that could lead to the imprisonment for up to three years of anyone who fails to report within 24 hours the identities of everyone they know who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, or who supports human rights for people who are, to the government.

This reprehensible bill is not only urjust on its face: Its mere existence could provoke or legitimize violence against individuals who either are LGBT or are rumored to be LGBT, their families, and community leaders in their places of worship, residence, school, or place of business. The Anti-Homosexuality Act of2009 even establishes extra-territorial jurisdiction which consequently endangers known LGBT citizens living abroad who may be extradited and prosecuted in Uganda.

Mr. President, we applaud Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent statement of concern about Uganda’s pending legislation. We concur with her fear that the bill would create fear, promote hatred, and potentially divide communities. We take at face value her statement that the U.S. has urged Uganda to take all necessary measures to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, harassment, or discrimination. We also applaud the recent White House statement indicating your opposition to the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda.

However, we strongly believe that the severity of the legislation under consideration in both Uganda and Rwanda requires that you do more. Sweden has indicated that it will cut bilateral assistance to Uganda should the bill be passed. Canada and the United Kingdom also have condemned the bill, and Prime Minister Gordon Brown took up the matter directly with Ugandan President Museveni at the recent Commonwealth Summit. We ask that you use all means available to seek to deter these bills from passage, and that a tangible and meaningful bilateral response be undertaken should either bill be passed into law.

Specifically, we ask that you speak out publicly against this proposed legislation to bring further attention to the issue. Also, given your popularity in Africa, speaking out publicly against Uganda and Rwanda’s proposed anti-homosexual legislation is likely to garner more concern and attention from not only African nations but internationally. We further ask that you give diplomatic weight to your call for homosexuality to be decriminalized worldwide. While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international treaties prohibit discrimination and specify that all enjoy the right to privacy, over 80 countries currently have in place sodomy laws or other legal provisions that criminalize the LGBT community. We believe that standing up for the rights of all individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, reflects the fundamental precepts of our country. We would be pleased to learn what efforts you and your Administration have undertaken since March 2009 to help move other countries toward fully protecting the rights of all their citizens.

We are reaching out to you not only as our President, but as a close ally in the struggle to fight for the human rights of vulnerable minorities. Like you, we believe that human rights violations of any kind should not be tolerated, and the threatened persecution of the LBGT community in Uganda and around the world is unacceptable. As an international leader, the United States has an opportunity to prevent proliferation of hate, civil unrest and violence in Uganda, Rwanda, and other countries considering these devastating policies. We respectfully ask for your immediate and consequential help in addressing these grave dangers.

Yours truly,

Tammy Baldwin, Jared Polis, Barney Frank, Howard Berman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Donald Payne, Sheila Jackson Lee, Barbara Lee, Peter Welch, Linda Sanchez, Lynn Woolsey, Mary Jo Kilroy, Rosa DeLauro, Jim Oberstar, Mike Quigley, Bob Filner, Gerry Connolly, Diane Watson, John Garamendi, Steve Israel, John Olver, Doris Matsui, Steve Cohen, Chellie Pingree, Maurice Hinchey, Steve Driehaus, Brad Sherman, Peter DeFazio, Timothy Bishop, Hank Johnson, Paul Hodes, Elijah Cummings, Tim Walz, Michael Capuano, David Wu, Jerrold Nadler, Michael M. Honda, Lois Capps, Raul Grijalva, Robert Brady, Mike Doyle, Diana DeGette, Zoe Lofgren, Alcee Hastings, Carolyn Maloney, Bill Delahunt, Charles Gonzales, James Moran, George Miller, Joseph Crowley, Anthony Weiner, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Rush Holt, Keith Ellison, Steven R. Rothman, Eliot Engel, Anna Eshoo, Frank Pallone, John Hall, Brian Baird, David Price, Jim McDermott, Ed Pastor, Earl Blumenauer, Albio Sires, Jim Langevin, Carol Shea-Porter, Bart Gordon, Tom Perriello, Bill Pascrell, Sander Levin, Mike Thompson, Fortney Pete Stark, Gwen Moore, John Yarmuth, James P. McGovern, Yvette Clarke, Patrick Kennedy, Lloyd Doggett, Gary Peters, Madeleine Bordallo, Dennis Kucinich, Jan Schakowsky, Joe Sestak, Betty McCollum, Laura Richardson, Henry Waxman, Phile Hare, Jackie Speier, Donna Edwards, Judy Biggert, William Lacy Clay, Martin Heinrich, Kathy Castor.

Jeff Sharlet: "Palin represents that new generation of evangelicals who are excited about women in leadership, who are excited about the more libertarian Western style of her."

In the culture wars that have been placed front and center by the nomination of Sarah Palin, very little seems clear–except that Palin and the Republicans are getting the better of it so far in the court of public opinion.

Author and journalist Jeff Sharlet

Jeff Sharlet thinks he understands why. Sharlet (interviewed here back in June about his book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power), is the most astute and incisive journalistic observer of the American religious right we’ve got. I spoke with him yesterday about Palin; liberals interested in stopping the momentum of a Republican ticket that has quickly transmuted itself into Palin-McCain would do well to absorb what he has to say about her.

Three central propositions here: Sarah Palin emerges from the most militaristic strand of contemporary evangelicalism; her brand of incipient theocracy excites the Christian base like nothing in living memory; and Democratic operatives and liberal bloggers are miscalculating badly when they mock her lack of experience and expertise or make jokes about her pregnant daughter.

Don’t think Dan Quayle, says Sharlet. Think George Wallace. Like Wallace, he notes, “Sarah Palin does this thing where she understands that if someone asks her a tricky question, she wins either way. She wins if she knows the answer, if she’s versed in the policy [in question]. And she wins if she doesn’t. The people who are supporting her like that. And it’s not because they’re know-nothings. It’s because, with good reason, they’ve come to be suspicious of the wisdom of Washington. So they see this as a kind of truer honesty and an opening to the direction of God. I think that’s just going to make her stronger and stronger. And the more liberals play it up, the more they’re doing free advertising for the McCain campaign.”

Please give the interview a listen and pass it on. A transcript of the interview follows below.

Listen: Author Jeff Sharlet talks about Sarah Palin’s religion and liberals’ miscalculated response to her (20:25)

Minnesota Independent: This interview stemmed in part from some correspondence we had yesterday. You observed in your note that Sarah Palin is engendering more enthusiasm, more adulation, among evangelical voters than anyone since William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Can you say more about that parallel?

Jeff Sharlet: William Jennings Bryan was known as the Great Commoner. He ran as a Democrat and is best known for two things: He was the prosecutor in the Scopes monkey trial, the champion of fundamentalism. But many years before that, he’d been perhaps of one of the most radical left populist candidates in history. He roared, “We will not be crucified on a cross of gold,” by which he meant the gold standard. He tapped into–as Palin does as well–the obvious populism within fundamentalism, but also a real anger with the status quo.

We know Sarah Palin is campaigning on the ticket of the status quo, but I think she’s benefiting from this storyline that she’s able to tap into. When I hear evangelicals say they haven’t been this excited since Ronald Reagan, I think they’re mistaken. They haven’t been this excited in 100 years, since William Jennings Bryan.

MnIndy: What’s so exciting about her?

Sharlet: The thing that’s exciting about her, which I think a lot of people aren’t getting–they say, well, she isn’t experienced. But that’s a positive thing in two ways. It’s positive in that sort of populist way I’m talking about. Joe Biden is experienced, and look at the world we live in. Experience has brought us to this sorry state; so much for experience.

But secondly, it’s about her heart, not her experience. She knows right from wrong. You can be wise in the ways of the world, but from their perspective, Palin is righteous in the ways of the spirit. She is someone who was training in spiritual warfare while Obama was going to Harvard Law. It’s a very different set of credentials. I think that’s exciting to them. And she’s very open and bold in talking about that. She’s open and bold in talking about intercessory prayer–much more so than George Bush. We have someone who says to her followers, Let’s pray for a gas pipeline. Let’s pray for this specific thing to happen, and that’s exciting [to evangelicals].

The other thing I think a lot of people aren’t getting about her, and why [her backers] are so excited is that evangelicalism and fundamentalism, these are movements that have been trying to re-invent themselves for decades now, to distance themselves from the racism and sexism that have long been in the DNA of the movement. And they are absolutely thrilled to be able to vote for a woman. And the way they’re able to do that is, in their eyes she is not even so much a woman as a mother. And “mother” trumps all.

MnIndy: Talk about Sarah Palin’s theological outlook a little. She was raised in an off-shoot of the Assemblies of God that was in fact condemned by the Assemblies of God in 1949 and 2000. It’s a pretty extreme movement that goes variously by the names Third Wave, New Apostolic Reformation, Latter Rain. Without getting into the minutiae of the theological distinctions here, how would you characterize what you’ve been able to glean about Sarah Palin’s outlook on the interplay of government and religion?

Sharlet: The interesting thing about the Assemblies of God is that until the 1960s, the Assemblies of God were a pacifist church. A lot of Assemblies of God people would not serve in the military. And since then, the Assemblies of God as a broad denomination–they prefer the term “fellowship,” but they’re a denomination, and by the way the largest Pentecostal denomination in the world, with about 60 million followers–have become the most militaristic [denomination]. What began as a metaphor for them, spiritual warfare, meaning internal struggle, has increasingly been made concrete in the world of political struggle and of military struggle in places like Iraq.

Sarah Palin’s coming out of that movement. Within that, there’s this movement that you’re talking about that even the Assemblies of God denounced. I actually think we are making a little too much of that denunciation. I think a lot of folks on the left are saying, this movement is so extreme that even the Assemblies of God is denouncing it! That has a lot to do with internal denominational politics.

Theologically, it’s not that radically different from the Assemblies of God. Of course, Assemblies of God is pretty–I don’t want to say extreme, because with 60 million people, it is a mainstream religion. But it is a pretty vigorous fundamentalist point of view. And Sarah Palin’s coming out of that. What it means about the relationship of her religion to politics is that, one, she doesn’t feel that she’s theocratic. They actually don’t think they’re theocratic. And they have a way of getting out of that: Theocratic would be if I was a clergy person and sat down and studied the Bible and said, Okay, I’m going to pass this law because in my wisdom, I have seen this in the Bible.

That’s not what they do. They turn themselves over to the spirit. The movement she’s a part of is really holy ghost-powered. What they say is, they’re just being a vessel. A term that a wonky theologian might use is “theo-centric.” Their point of view is that they’re not theocratic, they’re not going to govern from above, they’re just going to be theo-centric. When Sarah Palin looks at a thing, she just tries to open herself up to the spirit and let the spirit flow through her. And if the spirit flows straight through her into the Alaska pipeline, then far be it from her to question that.

What it amounts to is a sort of self-interest by divine proxy.

MnIndy: She does seem to have a lot of inclinations that would be commonly termed theocratic. I’m thinking of the dust-up over her trying to fire the town librarian in Wasilla, Alaska, who would not cooperate in helping her ban books. There are, similarly, the stories about her requiring rape victims to pay for their own rape kits. It appears that the values of her religion are written in every line of her vision of governance. Fair or no?

Sharlet: Absolutely fair. She doesn’t think she’s theocratic, but for the rest of us living under a Palin government, the effect would be the same. We have to temper that thought with the fact that she has not governed Alaska in a particularly theocratic way. I think her instincts are theocratic. We saw that in the book [banning effort]. That’s essentially an authoritarian thing, especially if you look at the books she wanted to ban, one of which was called Pastor, I Am Gay, which was written by a local Christian conservative pastor who took a gentler approach to this. So there’s another level to this. It’s one thing to censor a book; that’s frightening enough. It’s an even more frightening thing to try and censor your neighbor, to try to put tape over the mouth of someone who lives right next to you and is a conservative Christian himself. That shows a real attention to detail that one finds in figures such as Stalin. I think there is a Stalinesque streak to her personality.

The thing about the rape kit that you mentioned, I actually don’t see as theocratic. I see that, from her perspective, as coming out of her libertarian sensibility. She doesn’t want the government paying for anything, especially if we don’t really know that this thing happened.

So we see this interesting mix of libertarianism and authoritarianism. They are sensibilities that are often at odds with each other, and I think we see that tension in her. I think that actually makes her a more dangerous character. Sarah Palin, I don’t think, actually has a clear sense of what she believes or what she is. And I think in those moments of uncertainty, she’s going to be especially prone to fall back on the authority of her religion.

MnIndy: We’ve been hearing for months now that popular enthusiasm for the mixing of religion and politics is very much on the wane, even among evangelicals, supposedly. Do you see that creating a schism in the upswelling of support for Palin at some point, or is that whole set of concerns swept aside by the enthusiasm for what she represents?

Sharlet: You know, I think that whole set of concerns was very misleading, and essentially wishful thinking on the part of a center-liberal media–a centrist, establishmentarian media that is sick of talking about religion and needs a storyline where things change. My friend Amy Sullivan at Time just wrote a piece saying she thinks evangelicals are so moderate now that Palin will become a burden on McCain, because evangelicals won’t like her. She says, evangelicals today live in the suburbs. They have graduate degrees. And I thought, one, the majority of America lives in the suburbs; that doesn’t mean anything. And two, they have graduate degrees? I think Amy means herself. She has a Ph.D. from Princeton, and she is a liberal evangelical.

But the reality is that American evangelicalism hasn’t turned leftward; it’s gone deeper. It’s broadened its interests to talk about global warming and all these other things, but bringing an evangelical conservative perspective to that. I think Sarah Palin actually represents that. Sarah Palin is riding the crest of a wave. I think the day that McCain announced her, there were tears in Arkansas as Mike Huckabee, so [new] on the national scene, realized he was already a dinosaur. Palin represents that new generation of evangelicals who are excited about women in leadership, want to vote for women, who are excited about the more libertarian Western style of her, even as they’re also excited about her greater firmness on issues they consider bedrock.

Even as the press was telling us, oh, evangelicalism is gone, we saw a survey saying that young evangelicals are wildly more pro-life than even their parents’ generation. So is Sarah Palin. She exemplifies that. You have in Palin a perfect match of a leader and a movement. Whether that can overcome the big drag of John McCain, I don’t know, but I would be hard-pressed to believe that she’s not going to be around a long time unless some overwhelming scandal knocks her out. But I don’t see that happening.

MnIndy: One of the things you said in our correspondence yesterday was that liberals are absolutely blowing it in their response to Palin. How so?

Sharlet: [laughs] They’re making me want to vote for her, and I’m pretty far left. I don’t say that lightly; I’m really left. But I read the responses to her and they destroy me. There’s this back-and-forth about whether the response is sexist. I don’t think there’s any question. Especially in private conversations, talking with Democratic operatives and so on. It’s pretty deeply misogynist. I remember one private online discussion with Democratic operatives, and finally someone had to come in and tell the men they really had to stop using the c-word. There’s this anger directed toward her.

So they’re getting that wrong. They’re also getting wrong–the things they think are her weaknesses are her strengths. I talked about experience. They think the Bristol scandal is a weakness. The Bristol scandal made her so much stronger in the evangelical circles that I’m looking at. They were amazed. Everybody has this kind of thing, or knows of this kind of thing. Seventeen-year-olds have sex.

We all know this. But Bristol Palin didn’t get an abortion. So they see Bristol Palin as a hero, and they see Sarah as a heroic mother. Down the line, the things that they’re trying to pick on as weaknesses are going to be seen as strengths. And when they talk about lack of experience, and people refer to Dan Quayle, or to George McGovern’s [Thomas] Eagleton, I think the real predecessor in terms of that issue is George Wallace, the famous segregationist governor of Alabama who played a spoiler role in a couple of elections running as a far, far right-wing Democrat.

Like George Wallace, Sarah Palin does this thing where she understands that if someone asks her a tricky question, she wins either way. She wins if she knows the answer, if she’s versed in the policy [in question]. And she wins if she doesn’t. The people who are supporting her like that. And it’s not because they’re know-nothings. It’s because, with good reason, they’ve come to be suspicious of the wisdom of Washington. So they see this as a kind of truer honesty and an opening to the direction of God. I think that’s just going to make her stronger and stronger. And the more liberals play it up, the more they’re doing free advertising for the McCain campaign.

MnIndy: One more question, and I want to circle back around to your book The Family. A man who figures fairly prominently in your book, Dan Coats, has a Palin tie in this campaign. Tell us a little about who he is and what the connection is.

Sharlet: Dan Coats, to me, is what gives us the real truth about Sarah Palin. She can play this populist card, but she is after all a status quo candidate, and Dan Coats is the clue. Former Senator Dan Coats of Indiana is not the brightest bulb on the porch. He considered Dan Quayle his mentor. George Bush wanted him for secretary of defense until [Dick] Cheney vetoed him as too conservative–too obsessed with purging the military of all gays and lesbians.

Coats is nonetheless a canny politician, if not a great thinker, and has become one of the top advisers to the McCain campaign. The word is that it was Coats who was pushing very hard for Palin and was her champion, just as he was the champion of Justices Alito and Roberts.

Coats has long been connected with this group I write about called The Family. These are the folks who bring us the National Prayer Breakfast every year. They’re as unlike that kind of populist fundamentalism as you could imagine. They’re elite fundamentalism. They are polished, they are sophisticated, they are internationalist. And they are absolutely committed to ideas of Biblical capitalism and laissez-faire economics and neo-conservative foreign policy.

That’s the connection I think we see in Palin. If you look at the governor’s prayer breakfast that Palin presides over in Alaska, you see this remarkably authoritarian, really baldly dominionist, kind of theology. That plugs right into this group in Washington, which in a survey of 360 top evangelical leaders, was deemed the most influential Christian religious group in Washington, despite the fact that they rarely make the news because they’re behind-the-scenes operators.

Coats is the connection. Coats is the clue that tells us for all her populist performance, what Sarah Palin is really campaigning for is continuity of establishment power.