Petrelis Files

Uganda: Rolling Stone, No Call to Action, 
Wenner $$ File, HRW's Ex-Bully 

The horrific campaign of terror being waged on the gay community of Uganda took a higher-level of vileness recently when a local newspaper called Rolling Stone printed photos, locations and names of people alleged to be gay. Oh, it also wants them hanged from trees.

This outing and lynch-mob effort seriously increases the risk of harm to the safety and security of all gay persons, or those perceived to be such, and the paper doing it has zero connection to the American magazine Rolling Stone.

I was first made aware of this madness thanks to Jim Burroway and his Box Turtle Bullet blog.

To their immense credit the genuine Rolling Stone publication, founded and owned by openly gay publisher Jann Wenner, today posted the following message on their site:

A new newspaper out of Uganda bearing the name Rolling Stone has published one of the most vile and hateful anti-gay screeds we have ever read. The article printed the addresses and photos of 100 homosexuals in the country, calling for them to be hanged. Not only are we not affiliated in any way with the Ugandan paper, we have demanded they cease using our name as a title. But there is a larger issue at stake: Homosexuality is still a crime in much of Africa, often punishable by life in prison. “Half the world’s countries that criminalize homosexual conduct do so because they cling to Victorian morality and colonial laws,” says Scott Long of Human Rights Watch. “Getting rid of these unjust remnants of the British empire is long overdue.”

Ah, the bully of international gay human rights advocacy, known by some as an equal to Karl Rove in terms of dirty tricks and sock puppetry, Scott Long, the former director of gay issues at Human Rights Watch. Sure, I laud Rolling Stone for it message, but it must be taken to task for quoting Long as if he's still at HRW, or worth citing without referencing his controversial and divisive tenure at HRW.

If Rolling Stone had Googled for some recent info on Long, about such things as his org making an unprecedented apology to longtime gay advocate Peter Tatchell. From HRW's letter of June 30, 2010:

Human Rights Watch (HRW) apologizes to Peter Tatchell for a number of inappropriate and disparaging comments made about him in recent years by Scott Long, director of HRW's LGBT program. We recognise that personal attacks have no place in the human rights movement. [...]

Then in late August, Long developed a severe case of a Soviet-style case of the flu and was dismissed by HRW. His official explanation for moving on would have delighted the editors of Pravda in Brezhnev's day, it was so full of obfuscation and self-pity. If the magazine needed a credible source on the hate in Uganda, the U.S. President's remarks could have been cited.

Finally, let's discuss Rolling Stone's omission of any call to action from the president, the Obama administration or Democratic House and Senate leaders.

Nice that the magazine is all upset, but why stop at a simple condemndation of what it rightfully says is one of the most vile homo-hating pieces they have ever set eyes upon?

Wenner's FEC file shows that he's given at least $167,556 in the past two decades, to Democrats and their PACs, while heavily donating to Obama's 2008 campaign. I hope those donations are not the reason why Rolling Stone magazine has failed thus far to call on the American government to take action over the escalation of homo-hatred in Uganda.