After I read about Uganda's now famous "kill the gays" bill, I wanted to explore the religious forces behind it. As a gay man, I wanted to understand the folks who wanted to kill me and why.

Someone sent an email to Reverend Joanna Watson [an American missionary] saying that I'm gay, and she sent it to all the anti-gay pastors in Uganda. One of them said, "We're going to take care of this guy." When I was confronted by them I didn't know what they were going to do, but they decided to pray over me. They said they were going to cure me. That didn't work, of course.

Why so much interest in Uganda? Why are American conservatives lobbing for hate? The answer is that they feel they have lost the culture war here at home and are exporting their outdated ideas to the developing world.

When you are in the prayer room you forget about the outside world and fall into a Christian rock coma, and nothing else seems to matter.

Owen [Suskind], in a sense, grew up on a diet of myth and fable, and has become an expert on their themes, which contain a moral guide that connects people.

The first lady of Uganda is a devoted evangelical and beloved by the faith community. At an evangelical conference in Argentina, one minister said, "Mama Janet has given us the keys to Africa." She has done that by creating a nation that has embraced a Dominionist form of Christianity that believes that Christians have a God-given right to rule the world.

I agree that Scott Lively is marginal, and that is exactly why evangelicals must not let him speak for them. But in Uganda, Scott Lively is allowed to address the parliament for five hours, and his hate-filled message led directly to the anti-homosexuality bill.