CHICAGO—A Nobel Peace Prize nominee who is leading the struggle against laws which criminalize LGBT people in his home country of Uganda will address Catholic leaders assembled for a conference in Chicago, April 28-30, 2017.
Frank Mugisha, the Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, will be a plenary speaker at New Ways Ministry’s Eighth National Symposium entitled “Justice and Mercy Shall Kiss: LGBT Catholics in the Age of Pope Francis,” at the Hilton Rosemont Chicago O’Hare Hotel, 5500 North River Road, near O’Hare International Airport. He will speak on Sunday, April 30, 2017, at 8:30 a.m. His talk is entitled “The Catholic Church, Criminalization Laws, and the LGBT Experience in Uganda” (For more information, visit: www.symposium2017.org.)
Mugisha, the leading African voice for LGBT liberation has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He regularly faces death threats and intimidation for his work. In 2009, Frank Mugisha led a massive march to stop the Anti-Homosexuality Bill that would have instituted incarceration for consensual homosexual acts and criminalized the medical treatment of homosexuals with HIV/AIDS. He has received numerous awards, including United Nations Human Rights Defenders Recognition in 2010, the 2011 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, Norway’s Thorolt Rafto Award in 2011, and nomination for the Nobel award in 2014.
Catholic leaders in Uganda have often supported laws that would criminalize and offer severe sentences to people convicted of same-sex relations. Mugisha’s colleague, David Kato, was assassinated in Uganda in 2011.
For more information, to receive press credentials, or to interview Mugisha, contact:
Francis DeBernardo, director@NewWaysMinistry.org, cell: 240-432-2489.
New Ways Ministry is a 40-year old national Catholic ministry of justice and reconciliation for LGBT Catholics and the wider church community. For more information, visit www.NewWaysMinistry.org.