Uganda’s Anti-Gay President Condemns Oral Sex: ‘The Mouth Is For Eating’

After signing a “Kill the Gays” bill into law four years ago, Uganda’s anti-LGBTQ president has a new crusade: He wants to stop people from having oral sex.

In a press conference broadcast on Monday, President Yoweri Museveni urged citizens to cease engaging in fellatio or cunnilingus, calling the sexual acts “wrong practices indulged in and promoted by some of the outsiders.”

“Let me take this opportunity to warn our people publicly,” he said.

“One of [these practices] is what they call oral sex,” the president continued. “The mouth is for eatingnot for sex.”

This isn’t the first time that Museveni has taken a stand against oral intercourse. After the leader approved the 2014 bill, which also prosecuted anyone who failed to report LGBTQ citizens, he claimed that such activity causes disease.

“You push the mouth there,” Museveni said. “You can come back with worms and they enter your stomach.”

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill would be struck down by its constitutional court the same year it was passed. But prior to its repeal, the draconian law represented one of the harshest anti-LGBTQ policies ever put forward by a national legislature. Under the original version of the bill, a charge of “aggravated homosexuality” would result in the death penalty.

When Museveni signed into law a slightly softened version mandating life imprisonment for sodomy convictions, the president referred to homosexuality as “disgusting.”

He further claimed gays were “mercenaries” and “prostitutes.”

“I have failed to understand that you can fail to be attracted to all these beautiful women and be attracted to a man,” Museveni said. “There is something really wrong with you.”

Despite that law being overturned, Uganda has continued to crack down on its LGBTQ community in recent years. The country’s Pride event was shuttered in 2017 following threats from government leaders, and police carrying AK-47s raided a queer film festival just months later.

Museveni also pushed legislation last year which would permit the 73-year-old to rule for life.

Photo via Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images