From our friends at the taskforce on Stop the Call to Violence:

STOP THECALL TO VIOLENCE in UGANDA!

LGBT Faith Leaders Speak Out Against US Evangelist Spreading More Hate and Fear in Uganda

LGBT faith leaders in the United States are calling for bloggers and other media to expose an upcoming anti-gay stadium event, TheCall Uganda being headed by another U.S. evangelical, Lou Engle. Engle, a radically anti-gay and anti-abortion evangelical, is scheduled to hold an all-day mass rally, on May 2nd, at Makerere University Sports Field, Kampala, Uganda from 2pm to 7pm

Rev. Patricia Ackerman of the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office said, “Only a public outcry will be able to stop TheCall from exporting more hate from the United States to Uganda in the name of religion.”

FACTS:

• Lou Engle, was the evangelist for TheCall Qualcomm Stadium event in San Diego at the end of the Prop 8 campaign says gay people are demon possessed; http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2009/12/21/18614
• “TheCall Uganda” has Lou Engle scheduled to preach. His usual message is condemnation, judgment and exorcism. Thousands of people who have fasted for days are expected at the stadium in Kampala making them more vulnerable to his violent message.
• Lou Engle is credited with saying, “The most “dangerous terrorist” is not Islam but God. One of God’s names is the avenger of blood. Have you worshipped that God yet." [sic] http://www.fotb.com/Publisher/File.aspx?id=1000010167

For more info, read on after the jump.

BACKGROUND
Lou Engle is known for calling for blood punishment of the U.S. for abortions. He accuses Muslims of wanting to make the USA an Islamic state and calls gays demon possessed.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7iNftDaIjc

The web site for “TheCall Uganda” announces a stadium rally in Kampala on May 2,  and exhorts those attending to fast for twenty-one days before the massive rally in Kampala. Their goals—to fight against:
•    Witchcraft and human sacrifice
•    Homosexuality and increased immorality
•    Disasters and the resultant suffering of the people
•    The decay of morals and infrastructure of our city Kampala

LGBT community in Uganda has indicated that his plan is to scapegoat LGBT people for all the ills described above.

With the Anti-Homosexuality Bill under consideration,”TheCall: Uganda” threatens to export homophobia at a time when it could have deadly consequences.  Threats and violence against LGBT people are already increasing.  Many have had their photos in Ugandan newspapers with headlines describing them as “Top Homos.”
http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2009/04/19/10764

Frank Mugisha, president Sexual Minorities of Uganda, said, “Gay people are already fleeing their homes and have to move from house to house because of threats to their lives. Americans need to stop Lou Engle from coming to Uganda.”

Lou Engle is just the latest Evangelical to go to Uganda.  The most damaging were three evangelicals from the United States – Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge, and Don Schmierer – who held a three-day conference on homosexuality in Kampala, Uganda, in March 2009.  Video of Lively at this conference shows him saying gay people were behind the Nazi holocaust and labeling all gay people as child molesters.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amVnWtpR1is

Days later, Member of Parliament David Bahati proposed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 to the Ugandan Parliament.  This Bill would allow for the imprisonment of anyone who failed to report a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender person.  It calls for the death penalty for so called “serial offenders,” and extradition of Ugandans perceived to be gay—wherever they are in the world.

Hundreds of other religious leaders have signed petitions and sent letters to top officials in Uganda.  President Obama and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, have publicly challenged the proposed bill and worked behind the scenes to reach the current stalemate. Even Evangelicals like Rick Warren and Joyce Meyer have condemned the bill, despite being against LGBT equality.

Now Engle is going to Uganda.  In the past, Engle has encouraged followers to be martyrs for their faith and has spoken of casting out “homosexual spirits” and called San Francisco their “dominion of darkness.” He fired up a massive pro-Prop 8 rally by encouraging an audience of 20,000 to prepare for martyrdom. http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2009/12/21/18614

The promotional rhetoric for “TheCall: Uganda” has been similarly heavy-handed, saying the event “is intended to awaken and revive the young and the old, men and women, church and family, government and the public and to fight vices eating away at our society.”

Whether or not Engle intends to incite violence against LGBT people in Uganda, we’ve seen how this kind of homophobic religious rhetoric has fueled hate and violence in the past. Now, with tensions high and the pending bill being called “genocidal” by an Ugandan priest, the stakes are higher than ever.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/katine/2009/dec/04/gideon-byamugisha-homosexuality-bill

Text of Lou Engle’s Manifesto for TheCall Uganda:
http://www.thecalluganda.com
We are sounding an urgent “Call to National Repentance”!!!  Joel 2:15-17

Given the various challenges facing our country, at church, family, and government levels, we the spiritual leaders of Uganda, collectively call upon all God fearing people to join in a season of:

“21 days of fasting and prayer, from 11th April to 1st May 2010.”

It is intended to awaken and revive the young and the old, men and women, church and family, government and the public and to fight vices eating away at our society.  We shall all join our hearts across tribal, political, denominational, and generational boundaries, to cry to God to help us with the challenges in our country such as:

•    The heightened political tensions and wrangles in the country, especially as we go towards the 2011 general elections

•    The increasing level of social evils in our society, some which are threatening our values and lifestyles e.g.

•    Witchcraft and human sacrifice

•    Homosexuality and increased immorality

•    Disasters and the resultant suffering of the people

•    The decay of morals and infrastructure of our city Kampala

•    The sins and shortcomings that have been happening in the body of Christ, shaming the name of the Lord and discouraging God’s people (REV. 3: 1 – 3)

•    The evil practices being committed with impunity by those in public offices especially the widespread corruption and misappropriation of funds

•    The destiny of our youth and children who are confused by our deteriorating value system


TheCall TO NATIONAL REPENTANCE CLIMAX DAY
2nd MAY 2010 - (10.00 – 6.00PM)

AT MAKERERE UNIVERSITY SPORTS GROUNDS

TheCall Uganda Team

Prayer, fasting and repentance changes nations!

TheCall Uganda, http://www.thecalluganda.com/About%20Us.htm

UGANDAN Spiritual Leaders Endorsements:

Bishop Simon Peter Emiau - Chairman Evangelical Fellowship of Uganda; His Grace Luke Henry Orombi - Archbishop of Church of Uganda; Pastor Jotham Mutebi - Chairman Full Gospel Churches of Uganda; Pastor Titus Oundo - Chairman Diliverance Churches of Uganda; Apostle John Mulinde - World Trumpet Mission; Apostle Jackson Ssenyonga - Christian Life Ministries; Pastor Gary Skinner - Watoto (formerly Kampala Pentecostal) Church; Apostle Joseph Ssewadda - General Overseer of Born Again Federation; Peter Asiimwe - Uganda Evangelical Mission Agency; Pastor Fred Wantaate - Coordinator for Pentecostal Golden Jubilee - Full Gospel Church;

Associates of Engle:

Senator Jim DeMint
Senator Sam Brownback
Rep. Michele Bachmann
Rep. Randy Forbes
http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2009/12/5467/

Newt Gingrich
Mike Huckabee
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/6/2/182337/6209/

Virginia GOP Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/4/13/856916/-Gay-demon-exorcist-to-share-stage-with-Virginia-GOP-Attorney-General

Rhetoric from Engle:

“State sanctioned immorality and state sanctioned sacrifice of children…”

“We are fighting a war that will define marriage and redefine gender…and infanticide…killing infants that are already being born.”

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8019093035153503459#docid=1290842731133226060

"Where there is shedding of innocent blood, there is no atonement for the land. There is a blood pollution problem on America’s soil. The most “dangerous terrorist” is not Islam but God. One of God’s names is the avenger of blood. Have you worshipped that God yet." [sic]

- In Engle, Lou. “Doctrine of the Shedding of Innocent Blood,” http://bound4life.com/shedding_of_innocent_blood.pdf

"What I witnessed in Bartle Hall on December 31st 2002 was the antithesis of radical Islam. Instead of people wanting to blow themselves up to kill others, I saw young adults who were so radically in love with Jesus that they were willing to become martyrs for the sake of saving other people's lives. Someone from the stage asked, 'who here feels like they are called to die as a martyr for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ?' Many hands went up throughout the stadium."

- In Jablonoskwi, Paul, “Sons to Glory,” on TheCall in Kansas City in 2002

“My son Jesse, he's nineteen years old. God has given him dreams, to go to San Francisco to launch a house of prayer, one block from the Castro District - where the homosexuals boast the dominion of darkness. He's going there with weeping in his heart. With the dream that prayer is stronger than the dominion of that spirit.

He's not going with an angry right. He's going with violence in the heavens and a [?] on the Earth. He may have to stay there 60 years to see that happen. He said to me, "dad," he said, "as long as I'm there I don't think the Lord will judge San Francisco." [boos, from crowd] I LOOK FOR A MAN TO STAND IN THE GAP THAT CAN CRY MERCY! [Engle shouts] NOT judgment. MERCY. Not judgment. He looks...

He's nineteen years old. He's starting to cast out homosexual spirits out of our new converts. It's scary as hell. The whole thing's scary. But fathers are to send their sons into the darkest places. [clapping]

So God spoke to me, "Take your son and offer him up on the mountain, I will show you. Genesis 22:2 - "Take now thy son, thine only son who you love, and offer him up on Mount Moriah. God's been speaking to us about this and I was weeping, [unintelligible] God said, "send your son to San Francisco and offer him up on those mountains." And I'm thinking, "God, that's the worst place to send him." I couldn't deny... I was burning in my heart and burning in His heart.

So, I was praying about this - I was in Kansas City, you know, in this hotel, I was meeting with these people, and this gal said, "I just dreamed that my son... your son Jesse was in San Francisco and he was praying for the Free Man." St. Francis - Francis means "Free Man." San Francisco is the city of the Free Man. [outcry from crowd, scattered clapping] And He said, "It's Mount Moriah Free Man."

I walk... that night I go to the IHOP meeting in Kansas City, I'm driving out of the hotel, and the road... the driveway into the hotel, it goes right out into a mort... into the mortuary and it says, "Mt Moriah Free Man Mortuary."  And I freak out. And I know the Lord... "offer your son onto death for the sake of the homosexual in America.”

- Lou Engle, "Holywood" - Sermon/Pre-Call Rally, September 25, 2007, Los Angeles,
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/12/19/105041/79

“On November 1, 2008, I attended TheCall - a rally organized by Lou Engle at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium - attended by 33,000 (according to organizer estimates) over a twelve hour period. Citing the state's "fog of Jezebel confusion"* Engle organized this incarnation of TheCall to support Proposition 8 - a California ballot proposition that would ban same-sex marriage in the state. During the event, Engle warned that the decadence in the state "will release a spirit that is more demonic than Islam". TheCall is a large-scale traveling revival that purports to offer participants an edifying day of fasting and prayer away from the temptations of secular culture. But far from being a quiet zone for collective meditation, TheCall was a anxious assembly of endtime spiritual warriors…

The "call" of the title was to spiritual warfare - to "break the 40-year Berkeley rebellion" (a reference to what they see as the rampant spread of secular values following the Berkeley protests of the 1960s) and to cleanse the city of San Francisco. Engle's apocalyptic battle cry, "As California goes, so goes the nation" was the underlying theme of the event - if the "sanctity of marriage" falls in the trendsetting state of California, the nation won't be far behind. The crowd was reminded by Engle, James Dobson, Tony Perkins and others of a Christian right maxim: the traditional family structure forms the foundation of a Godly society and to undermine it is to join forces with the Antichrist.

Toward the end of the night, the stakes were raised when an increasingly agitated Engle and a young campus leader from UC-San Diego called the crowd to ready themselves for martyrdom. The 20,000 or so who remained in the stadium after 12 hours of spiritual warfare seemed all too willing to comply.”

Michael W. Wilson, “TheCall: Spiritual Warfare in the Field of Martyrs,” Nov. 4, 2008, http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/11/4/14143/7617