Lou Engle Supports ‘Principled Stand’ Of Ugandan Anti-Gay Bill Promoters
As I discussed here last week, Jeff Sharlet, guest-posting on Warren Throckmorton’s blog, reported from Uganda on how supporters of the Anti-Homosexuality bill there understood American evangelist Lou Engle’s statements there as supportive of their efforts to get the bill passed. The role Engle might have played in offering American support for the bill is of intense interest, given that Engle has become an increasingly visible figure in the religious right — among other things, hosting a rally on the National Mall that included former presidential candidate and now Fox News host Mike Huckabee and the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins; appearing in a “prayercast” against health care reform with Republican members of Congress; and playing a prominent role in the recent Freedom Federation Summit held at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Engle’s anti-gay rhetoric is no secret, and in an interview with me on Friday, he supported criminalizing homosexuality, although he insists that he did not support the Ugandan bill because he believes the penalties are too harsh. But, as Michael Wilkerson reported for RD last month, at his Kampala The Call rally Engle did not contest the support for the bill of the speaker who preceded him, self-styled Apostle Julius Oyet. What’s more, Engle stated at The Call, “We know that Uganda has been under tremendous pressure—the church. We felt that same pressure. But I felt like The Call was to come and join with the church of Uganda to encourage you that in the nation who are showing courage to take a stand for righteousness in the earth.”
Engle now is splitting hairs and claiming that this statement wasn’t supportive of the bill, but rather of the bill’s promoters’ efforts to prevent the “homosexual agenda” from taking over the country.