A U.S. activist allegedly accepted $300K from Russia to push anti-gay laws in Africa

A wide-ranging investigation by the Wall Street Journal has uncovered evidence linking Russian cash to an anti-LGBTQ+ U.S. activist who helped promote “Kill the Gays” laws in Uganda and across Africa.

The publication found a large infusion of Russian cash helped fund an international conference in Uganda organized by Mormon anti-LGBTQ+ activist Sharon Slater and her Arizona-based Family Watch International organization to promote deadly queerphobic laws in the continent.

Related:

Rachel Maddow connects Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill to Arizona Christians

Uganda’s Parliament passed the law again today. It makes it a crime to just identify as LGBTQ+.

Emails, WhatsApp messages and interviews with conference attendees indicate Russia transferred $300,000 to help cover the costs of the March 2023 event. The conference occurred around the passage of Uganda’s precedent-setting Anti-Homosexuality Law, which mandates the death penalty for repeat homosexual offenders.

Global perspectives delivered right to your inbox

Our newsletter bridges borders to bring you LGBTQ+ news from around the world.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

Days before the conference, held in Entebbe along the shores of Lake Victoria, Uganda Parliament lawmakers received an email — carbon copied to Slater, the conference organizer — confirming that the Russian Embassy had just completed the transfer of cash.

Despite the emailed evidence to the contrary, Slater denied any knowledge of Russia’s contribution to her anti-LGBTQ+ campaign. She told the Journal that she and Family Watch never had any involvement with the Russian government on any African issues.

She also claimed Family Watch has never supported anti-LGBTQ legislation in African countries and wasn’t “responsible for the treatment of homosexuals under African laws.”

At the conference, attendees, including Slater and representatives from some 20 African nations, agreed to a common set of principles. Among them were a pledge to outlaw homosexuality and another to legally define a person’s gender as either male or female.

Adding to the evidence of Russian collusion, months earlier Russia’s ambassador to Uganda met with Ugandan Parliament speaker Anita Among, urging her to fast-track the Kill the Gays law through parliament, where it passed overwhelmingly and was cheered by lawmakers.

“This is the time you are going to show us whether you’re a homo or you’re not,” Among told the packed chamber.

Similar laws modeled on both on Uganda’s draconian legislation, which Slater spent years helping draft, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “gay propaganda” laws, have passed or are making their way toward signature in Kenya, Ghana and other African nations.

Slater and Family Watch have spent decades spreading their version of anti-LGBTQ+ hate across the African continent with a message that has resonated with allies in opposition to “decadent” Western values, including right-wing Catholics and Christians in Africa and Russia’s Orthodox Church.

Western countries and the United Nations, Slater has stated repeatedly, are working to “mainstream homosexuality and transgender ideology into the laws, policies and programs of every African country.”

Following Slater’s Russia-funded event, she told Uganda’s First Lady Janet Museveni, in comments later broadcast on Ugandan state television, “I cannot tell you the power that I think will reverberate across Africa, that will affect the whole world, from this conference.”  

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.

Don't forget to share: