Uganda Holds First Pride Parade Since Anti-Gay Law Was Overturned

UGANDA – About 200 attendees are gathering to march in the lakeside town of Entebbe on Saturday.
Entebbe is about 25 miles from the capital city of Kampala, the venue for the third annual Ugandan gay pride parade.
In contrast to the first parade which was held was violently broken up by police, this year’s was a much different scenario with the expected police protection this year.
“We are a group of people who have suffered enough,” said Ugandan lesbian activist Jacqueline Kasha. “We are Ugandans who have the right to gather in a public place … and we are going to have fun.”
The anti-gay law signed by President Yoweri Museveni earlier this year toughened existing penalties for what the law called “aggravated homosexuality.” However, a Ugandan court decision earlier this month invalidated the law because it had been passed without the requisite number of legislators.
Nicholas Opiyo, the human rights lawyer who led the fight against the law, is less sanguine about the legal win.
“That is what is most scary,” Opiyo told TIME.com. “The unseen, the unreported, the unwritten discrimination in the shop you go to, in the medical center you go to, on the bus you take or on the motor bike you take into town. That breaks your spirit.”