Obama's 'Kill the Gays' dilemma

Every president since Eisenhower has attended D.C.'s annual National Prayer Meeting, sponsored by the politically powerful evangelical group, The Fellowship. President Obama may be the exception. David Bahati, the Ugandan legislator behind a controversial bill designed to imprison—or even execute—Ugandan homosexuals (known as the "Kill the Gays" bill) says he's been invited and will attend the event on Feb. 4. Will Obama share the stage with this universally condemned figure—or boycott the meeting? (Watch a report about David Bahati's controversial proposal.)

If Bahati attends, Obama can't: What were the National Prayer Breakfast organizers thinking, asks Andrew Sullivan in The Atlantic. Implicitly endorsing the "Christianist" Bahati and his "looming pogrom as something even faintly Christian is abhorrent," and there's no question that "if Bahati attends, the president cannot pray alongside him."

"Bahati to attend the National Prayer Breakfast"

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Bahati's only fighting for Ugandan values: David Bahati, says Cliff Kincaid at Right Side News, is not intimidated by Western "homosexual imperialist" attempts to distort his "pro-family legislation." Uganda is "85 percent Christian," and the popular bill is actually designed not to "kill homosexuals," but to restrict "dangerous homosexual practices, including pedophilia, child rape, and the deliberate spreading of the AIDS virus."

"Homosexual imperialists target Uganda"

Whatever Bahati's saying, he's not actually invited: Key Fellowship member Bob Hunter has confirmed that Bahati was invited to Washington months ago as a "volunteer," reports Christian psychologist William Throckmorton in his blog. But he won't be attending the prayer breakfast—or be allowed to crash it. Organizers are "taking action to assure that Bahati [will] not come to any of the meetings."

"David Bahati will not attend the National Prayer Breakfast"

We'll see if Bahati shows Feb. 4: It's great that Bob Hunter has disinvited "Bahati, the guy who can’t wait to begin killing gay people," says Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin. But nobody with recognized authority within the Fellowship has said anything about Bahati, let alone the Anti-Homosexuality Bill." Until they do, "I’m sticking with the only first-person account I’ve seen so far"—Bahati's. Your move, Obama.

"Is Uganda’s 'kill-the-gays' bill author coming to Washington or not?"

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• Gay marriage's big defeat

• Texas accidentally 'bans' straight-marriage