Last Updated on January 10, 2024 by Kittredge Cherry
Tough questions about homosexuality, religion and LGBTQ rights are raised by the 45 Uganda Martyrs whose feast day is June 3.
In 2023 their feast day falls less than a week after Uganda’s president signed one of the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ laws, including the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality.”
Ugandan male pages refused to have sex with their king after they converted to Christianity — so he executed them on June 3, 1886. Many were burned to death. These boys and young men were canonized by the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, leaving some truths hidden by their halos.
Does the experience of the Uganda martyrs illustrate a gay king being oppressed and demonized by conservative Christians? Or does it exemplify Christians heroically trying to rescue boys from sexual abuse by a pedophile king? Did Christians teach young African men shame about their own same-gender-loving desires? Or did Christians give the pages a way to refuse rape by a ruler with absolute authority? Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between? Or were the sexual accusations fabricated? How can the story be interpreted so that LGBTQ people in Ugandan and around the world have equal access to justice… and to God?
The Uganda Martyrs are little known in the West, but they are famous in much of Africa. Martyrs Day on June 3 is a national holiday in Uganda. The story is called “African Christianity’s most celebrated martyr-passion narrative” by religion scholar Kenneth Hamilton. They were canonized in 1964 by Pope Paul VI.
Uganda Martyrs shape debate today
The 45 martyrs were executed in 1886, but they are still important now with Uganda at the center of worldwide debate on homosexuality and the release of the film “God Loves Uganda.” The award-winning documentary exposes the role of today’s American evangelical missionaries in persecuting LGBTQ Africans and promoting a harsher law against homosexuality.
Uganda LGBTQ rights activist David Kato became a modern Uganda martyr when he was murdered on Jan. 26, 2011. Some blame conservative religious rhetoric for his death. May his memory motivate efforts toward justice, equality and mutual understanding in Africa and beyond.
Once again LGBTQ Christians are caught in the middle as conservative Christians and LGBTQ advocates offer dueling interpretations use the story of the Uganda martyrs for their own purposes. Perhaps this uncomfortable position gives a perspective that can shed fresh light on the event. The history doesn’t fit neatly into the usual debates about the church versus homosexuality.
The Uganda Martyrs have been used to instill homophobia and, as Pope Pope John Paul II put it, “to draw Uganda and all of Africa to Christ.” The story weaves together homo-hatred, racism, and imperialism that are still affecting the world today. Conservatives play up the sexual angle in salacious detail to win converts, discredit the LGBTQ-rights movement and promote “chastity.” At the other extreme, LGBTQ-rights advocates use the story to prove that homosexuality was indigenous to Africa, not a “western import” as the anti-gay faction claims. They tend to ignore the difference between sex and rape, while both sides blur the line between homosexuality and pedophilia.
Ultimately the story leads back to the same questions that people of faith are grappling with all over the world now: How can the church condemn sexual abuse while still affirming the goodness of sexuality, including same-sex relationships? The search for a new LGBTQ-positive sexual ethics is expressed in books such as “Sex as God Intended” by gay priest and psychotherapist John McNeill and “Sexuality and the Sacred,” edited by James B. Nelson and Sandra P. Longfellow.
Today’s understanding of human psychology shows that rape is violence, not sex, and that pedophilia is not homosexuality, regardless of the gender of the child targeted. Christianity has been used to oppress queer people and colonize native peoples, but sometimes it has also provided an escape from abuse and an alternative to heterosexual marriage.
I watched “God Loves Uganda” for the first time in 2014 when it was broadcast on PBS (and released on DVD). Many others have praised the film, so I will focus here on questions that it raised in my mind.
I agree that American evangelicals are whipping up anti-LGBTQ sentiments in Uganda now to fuel their own power and egos. I also agree that American LGBTQ activists should be involved to some extent in Uganda to counteract the hate that is being imported. Thanks in part to the film, Uganda’s 2014 Anti-Homosexuality Act law was eased so that homosexuality was punished by imprisonment, not the death penalty. But the death penalty was reinstated in 2023.
But what do Ugandans really want, apart from all this outside influence? Before Europeans brought Christianity and colonialism, what did the people of Uganda think about homosexuality?
It’s hard to say. I did a lot of research, but reliable answers are not easy to find. Sara Weschler offers the insights of a foreigner working in Uganda in her article, “How the West Was Wrong: Misunderstanding Uganda’s Gay Rights Crisis Makes It Worse” at Truthdig.com:
“One problem with Western LGBT activism vis-à-vis Uganda is that it is largely carried out by people who know little about the country beyond its stance on sexual orientation…. Gay rights will come to Uganda, but they will come slowly, and they will come only as part of a wider movement toward social justice in the country.”
Like many progressive reports on Uganda and homosexuality, the movie “God Loves Uganda” doesn’t even mention the Uganda Martyrs. It’s easier to omit the inconvenient truth of male-male sexual exploitation in the past. But no history of homosexuality in Uganda is complete without discussing the Uganda martyrs killed in 1886.
A closer look at the history of the Uganda Martyrs
Here is a closer look at what happened. The Uganda Martyrs died at a time of tremendous change and culture clash in Uganda. The first Christian missionaries had arrived there only about a decade earlier in 1877. Arabs introduced Islam to Uganda at about the same time. It was still a few years before the British annexed the country in 1884.
King Mwanga II of Bugunda, now part of Uganda, was having sex on demand with the young men (and maybe boys) who served as his pages. He has been called “Africa’s most famous homosexual.” But maybe his sexuality was more complex. He had wives and children, so he might have been bisexual. He has been labeled a pedophile, but he was still a teenager himself. He began to reign at age 16 and was about 18 at the time of the executions. No matter how old the king’s sex partners were, requiring sexual service on pain of death is more like rape than gay sex between consenting adults. The youngest martyr, Saint Kizito, was about fourteen year old.
The crisis started when the king’s favorite pageboy, Mwafu, joined others in resisting his sexual demands. The royal pages were members of the elite, the noble sons of chiefs, but they ranked low in the king’s court. Some of them converted to Christianity and started denying King Mwanga the usual “pleasure,” so he rounded up the pages and ordered them to choose between him and Christianity. Only three chose the king. The rest of the pages got the death sentence. A large group ended up being marched eight miles and burned to death on Namugongo hill, where a shrine has been built. When all the killing was done, many sources say that the victims were 23 Anglicans and 22 Catholics, including chief pages Joseph Mukasa (first black Catholic martyr on the African continent) and Charles Lwanga. Other sources say that some of them were Muslim converts.
The earliest accounts report that the king had sex with his male pages, but over the years there has been increasing emphasis on the “sinful demands” and “perversion” of the “debauched” king. Toxic colonial hagiography mixed homophobia with racist fears about the “dark.” uncivilized, heathens of Africa. The dead were quickly nominated as saints, and were canonized as official martyrs in the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches.
Understanding the Uganda Martyrs
A helpful queer analysis of the martyrdom is provided by Kenneth Lewis Hamilton, who wrote about the Uganda Martyrs in several scholarly articles and in his Ph.D. dissertation at Union Institute and University. Hamilton identifies himself as “an Afri-guided, postcolonial, queer, ordained, Catholic missioner.” He writes in an article titled “The Flames of Namugongo: Postcoloniality Meets Queer on African Soil?”:
And so, the establishment of Christianity—particularly Roman Catholic and Anglican Christianity—in Uganda directly coincides with a narrative about transgressive same sex desire. This makes for a provocative beginning for Christian discourse in Eastern Africa; and the subsequent canonization of the martyrs inscribes dark, dangerous desire into the very skin of Christian Uganda. The canonization, indeed, is a preached message; the narrative of the “martyrdom” now becomes part of a canon of new narratives: the ones about sodomy, race, desire and conquest.
The same article concludes:
I want to get more pictures of the martyrs into African chapels and online….I want more pictures of the martyr-boys on our black Catholic walls. These are the bodies and clans that now inhabit the heavens. But they do so like the slaves did: as a subversive presence, smiling in your face, but always ready to revolt and set each other free.
Inspired by these words by Hamilton, I searched the Internet for images of the Uganda martyrs to accompany this reflection. First I found various icons. Then I was stunned to discover an actual group photograph of the martyrs themselves, taken about a year before they were killed. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the photo for a long time. And their faces still haunt me.
Prayer to remember the Uganda Martyrs
I was doubly surprised that the queer analysis of the Ugandan martyrs in “The Flames of Namugongo” included a prayer from one of my own books, “Equal Rites.”
I wanted to end this reflection with a prayer too. First I looked at the official church prayers dedicated to the Uganda Martyrs, but they focused heavily on Christian faith and even “chastity, purity, and sexual morality.” They didn’t seem suitable for a reflection that seeks to develop a new ethics and spirituality that affirms loving same-sex relationships between consenting adults.
So I bring this to a close with the same prayer that Hamilton quoted from “Equal Rites.” These words were written by Elias (Ibrahim) Farajaje-Jones in his “Invocation of Remembrance, Healing, and Empowerment in a Time of AIDS”:
Yes, we honor you, our sisters and brothers.
Yes, we remember and recognize you have gone before us.
Without you, we would not exist here today.
Through us, you live on from generation to generation, from everlasting to everlasting.
And so we commit ourselves to a spirit of resistance and life.
We raise our light, our lives, our hope, our love, and we say boldly
and without fear, “Never again!” [Equal Rites, page 27]
I give the last word to one of the Uganda Martyrs. These lines are attributed to Bruno Serunkuma, spoken shortly before he was killed:
“A well that has many sources never runs dry. When we are gone, others will come after us.”
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To read this article in Spanish / en español, go to Santos Queer:
Mártires de Uganda plantean preguntas sobre la homosexualidad, la religión y los derechos LGBTI
To read this article in Italian, go to:
Cristianesimo e omosessualità in Africa: la vicenda dei martiri ugandesi (gionata.org)
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Related links, queer interpretations and news:
Uganda enacts harsh anti-LGBTQ law including death penalty (Reuters, May 29, 2023)
Uganda: Brutal Killing of Gay Activist Brian Wasswa (Human Rights Watch, 2019)
Report: Anti-LGBT persecution increased under Uganda law (Washington Blade 2016)
“Colonial Legacies, Decolonized Spirits: Balboa, Ugandan Martyrs and AIDS Solidarity Today” by Kenneth Hamilton (Journal of Bisexuality)
“When Sodomy Leads to Martyrdom: Sex, Religion, and Politics in Historical and Contemporary Contexts in Uganda and East Africa” by John Blevins (Journal of Bisexuality)
Uganda Martyrs: Charles Lwanga and Companions (Queering the Church)
Books:
“Reimagining Christianity and Sexual Diversity in Africa” by Adriaan van Klinken and Ezra Chitando.
LGBTQ Africans find support from progressive Christianity as revealed by 10 case studies. They show how African activists, thinkers and movements are adapting Christianity to promote justice for LGBTQ people. Christianity is usually dismissed as an anti-LGBTQ force in Africa, but this well-researched book breaks stereotypes, counterbalances secular LGBTQ approaches and powerfully decolonizes queer theory, theology and politics. Van Klinken is professor of religion and African studies at the University of Leeds, and extraordinary professor at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, University of the Western Cape. He is also co-author of another 2021 book: “Sacred Queer Stories: Ugandan LGBTQ+ Refugee Lives and the Bible,” published by Boydell and Brewer. Chitando is religion professor at the University of Zimbabwe and theology consultant on HIV/AIDS for the World Council of Churches. Published by Oxford University Press, 2021.
“Sacred Queer Stories: Ugandan LGBTQ+ Refugee Lives and the Bible” by Adriaan van Klinken and others. Publication date: November 2021.
“Kenyan, Christian, Queer: Religion, LGBT Activism, and Arts of Resistance in Africa” by Adriaan van Klinken
“Christianity and Controversies over Homosexuality in Contemporary Africa” by Ezra Chitando and Adriaan van Klinken (Editors)
“Heterosexual Africa?: The History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS” (book) by Marc Epprecht
“Freedom To Love For ALL: Homosexuality is not Un-African” (book) by Yemisi Ilesanmi
“American Culture Warriors in Africa: A Guide to the Exporters of Homophobia and Sexism” by Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma
“Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities” (book) by Will Roscoe
“African Holocaust: The Story of the Uganda Martyrs” (book) by John F. Faupel (Author)
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Related links, Catholic and standard Christian interpretations:
Uganda Martyrs’ Shrine (official website)
St. Charles Lwanga and Companions (Catholic.org)
The Story of the Ugandan Martyrs (America magazine)
The Uganda Martyrs: Their Countercultural Witness Still Speaks Today (The Word Among Us)
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Top image credit:
Saint Kizito, Uganda Martyr (Wikimedia Commons)
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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBTQ martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.
This article was originally published in June 2017, was expanded with new material over time, and was most recently updated on June 16, 2023.
Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.
The struggles in Uganda, which are complex and troubling, remind me of the January 2016 decision (see https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35318392) that came from the then Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Anglican Communion. The decision essentially put the American Episcopal Church into the corner, a kind of “time out,” in which their involvement with the world church would be restricted for three years.
The reason for the meeting that rendered this decision was that many church leaders south of the equator took issue with the church’s apparent progression toward recognizing LGBTQ members, marriages, and appointments (such as Gene Robinson, who was Bishop of the New Hampshire Church). Many of these protesting leaders were in African countries.
It seems to me these leaders, who don’t seem to have shifted in their anti-LGBTQ positions, are trying to read Biblical scripture through the wrong lens. They’re looking at ancient times through contemporary lenses, trying to interpret scripture without any understanding—or, at least, any acknowledgement—of the differences between life 2,000 and more years ago and life today.
I can’t help remembering a more forward-looking scripture from I Corinthians:
13:11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things. 13:12 For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known. 13:13 But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love.
These young men were cruelly murdered by a selfish man who was a serial rapist. But let’s blame the victims and praise their murderer.
Do you even hear yourself?
Near the beginning of this article, you ask how the “story” of these martyrs can be reinterpreted in a manner which fits your agenda rather than just describing their tragic deaths in an honest manner. The known facts are: the king demanded that they submit to sex, which would (by definition) be homosexual; and the martyrs chose to defy the king in order to live according to the precepts of their religion (since most pageboys in that society apparently didn’t refuse, hence these Christians refused because of their religious principles which of course is why they were canonized as martyrs). Is it really so hard just to describe the known historical facts rather than spinning the issue to fit a political narrative?
Thank you for an excellent, balanced presentation on a nuanced and complex event. So sad that there are still some Christians who will use this tragic story as supplementation of their Terror Texts.
I am so appalled and saddened that you could even justify your homosexuality by this article you have written on the lives of Saints who gave up their lives for God’s love and His law rather than fall into the hands of the twisted sexual King who tortured them relentlessly for not having sex with him. You cannot change the laws of God or the norms of Christianity to justify your lifestyle. You try and make Christians feel bad for agreeing that homosexuality is a sinful act and for following their conscience by calling them a homophobia, yet you are a Christianphobia by not allowing them to follow their conscience.
Homoseexuality in Uganda predates King Muwanga and the diaries of the Catholic White Fathers highlight factual records of the sexual fluidity of African societies. This article at the link here throws light on the homosexual issue in Uganda.
http://thesilentnoisemedium.blogspot.com/2018/04/bugandas-homosexuality-hidden-story.html?m=1
Excellent and nuanced presentation
Thank you for this article on the Ugandan Martyrs. I appreciate the history — I did not know that Christianity arrived only about 10 years before the execution of the young men.