Election season is here, and like clockwork, Ugandan politicians have dusted off their favorite campaign strategy: screaming about the gays. It’s so predictable you could set your watch by it.

Speaker of Parliament Anita Among, campaigning in Bukedea, recently declared that Museveni is the hero who decreed “a man should marry a woman,” while “these people of opposition are saying that a man must get married to a fellow man!!”

Bold claim, considering the opposition : you know, the ones being beaten and teargassed for suggesting Ugandans deserve functional hospitals have never actually campaigned for gays to get married in Uganda. In fact a large number are just as homophobic or even worse than the ruling party . But why let facts ruin a good panic?

Not to be outdone, here come religious opportunists. Pastor Joseph Serwadda delivered an October 20th sermon that would be comedy gold if it weren’t so disturbing. His presidential litmus test? Where candidates stand on homosexuality. He then publicly prayed for 80-year-old Museveni not to die soon, a good christian gesture  one would say. But he was praying not for economic prosperity or an end to corruption, but so “homosexuality can be removed from the country.”

He’s worried about opposition politicians because they might be “funded by gays.” In the same service, he blessed an MP candidate based solely on their anti-LGBTQ+ stance. Nothing about healthcare, education, or jobs. Just their position on the gays.

But our politicians aren’t satisfied with domestic homophobia. They’re now lobbying Ghana to host an anti-LGBTQ+ Inter-parliamentary conference on “family values and sovereignty” , a traveling circus of hate, conveniently scheduled for election season. They want to share their “expertise” in passing anti-gay legislation with other African nations.

Let’s be clear about what Uganda is exporting here: not innovation, not development strategies, not anti-corruption frameworks. Just garden-variety bigotry dressed up as policy achievement.

So what’s the scorecard on this “success”?

The economy is in shambles. Education is underfunded and producing unemployable graduates. Healthcare facilities lack basic medicine. Corruption has become a national punchline. Our roads are more pothole than pavement.

But sure, let’s prioritize exporting anti-gay legislation. That’s the Ugandan achievement the continent is waiting for.

The Real Agenda

Here’s what’s actually happening: politicians with no vision, no solutions, and no achievements are using the LGBTQ+ community as a convenient scapegoat. When you can’t fix real problems, create imaginary ones.

Uganda’s LGBTQ+ community is tiny, largely invisible, and asking only to exist without persecution. Yet according to our political class, they’re simultaneously threatening traditional values, corrupting children, destroying families, controlling opposition politicians with mysterious gay money, and somehow responsible for every national crisis.

Remarkable how much power this marginalized, persecuted minority apparently wields—at least in the fever dreams of politicians with nothing else to campaign on.

While parliamentarians jet to Ghana to share persecution strategies, children drop out of school. While pastors pray for continued homophobia, patients die in supply-less hospitals. While the Speaker campaigns on anti-gay rhetoric, corruption drains billions and no Ugandan is better for it, gay or otherwise. 

The Bottom Line

Uganda’s politicians have perfected their formula: wrap yourself in religious rhetoric, wave the anti-gay flag, and watch voters ignore your corruption, incompetence, and complete lack of vision.

But here’s what they won’t tell you: this isn’t strength or moral leadership. It’s desperate flailing from politicians who’ve run out of ideas and are hoping you won’t notice they’ve run the country into the ground.

So as election season heats up and homophobic rhetoric reaches fever pitch, ask yourself: In a country facing economic collapse, educational crisis, and endemic corruption, why are the gays the biggest threat on your politician’s radar?

Because they’re hoping you won’t ask about everything else.