Thursday, January 26, 2012

"Of Late, We Are Here": Remembering David Kato



A year ago today, human-rights activist David Kato, an out gay man, was bludgeoned to death at his home in Uganda.  Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall commemorate Kato and his legacy in a moving short film linked to this New York Times article today.


"They kept on saying we are not here.  But of late, we are here": it has taken and continues to take untold sums of courage for gay and lesbian people simply to claim visibility in many parts of the world today.  To claim the very right to be here.  To exist.

The entire purpose of the cruel, lying tag the current pope gave to his gay brothers and sisters in his 1986 document on the pastoral care of homosexual persons--"intrinsically disordered"--is to mandate gay invisibility.  It is about commanding gay people not to be here, in the name of God.

"But of late, we are here."  And David Kato's brief, courageous, hope-filled life continues, even after he was brutally murdered, to proclaim that message in the face of the lies and hatred he gave his life to overcome.

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