Chaos at Kato's funeral
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Even in death, there was no peace for David Kato, the prominent Ugandan activist bashed to death with a hammer in his home Jan. 26 after a tabloid newspaper published his picture and the pictures of other gay people with the caption "Kill Them" -- and just 23 days after he won a lawsuit against the newspaper over the article.
At Kato's funeral, the Anglican official conducting the service, Thomas Musoke, started bashing gays, saying that "admiring a fellow man" is "ungodly," that even animals can distinguish male from female, and that "gays ... should repent."
Kato's gay friends rushed the pulpit and seized the microphone.
Then people at the funeral who apparently agreed with the celebrant got into physical skirmishes with the gay people. After that, the residents who would have carried the casket to the cemetery refused to do so, and Kato's friends had to do it.
On Feb. 2, police told local media that a "thief" Kato had bailed out of prison, Nsubuga Enock, confessed to killing Kato because Kato failed to give him a car, house and money that Kato purportedly dangled to coerce him into sodomy.
Numerous gay activists in Uganda and the U.S. said they do not believe the killing was about withheld gifts and are worried that the homophobic government intends to cover up the true motive for the crime to protect itself from foreign criticism and safeguard foreign aid.
Kato was the advocacy officer for the organization Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and had been a leading voice in the fight against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which has been before Uganda's Parliament since October 2009.
The legislation would imprison for life anyone convicted of "the offense of homosexuality," punish "aggravated homosexuality" (repeat offenses, or having gay sex while being HIV-positive) with the death penalty, forbid "promotion of homosexuality" and incarcerate gay-rights defenders, and jail individuals in positions of authority for up to three years if they fail to report within 24 hours the existence of all LGBT people or sympathizers known to them.
