The older I get, the more social “progress” seems less like a chronological progression toward more evolved, egalitarian principles, and instead, resembles a political two-step in which compromises zigzag between varying interests, some representing justice and equality, and others advocating entrenched money and  power structures. I found myself immersed in this rumination while happening upon two articles detailing recent Ugandan legislation.

I squealed with bliss, on the inside, when reading the first article detailing that Uganda’s parliament had outlawed genital mutilation. Ecstatic doesn’t describe the heights of my emotion, having advocated for years for an end to a vicious, barbaric practice that has tortured young women coming of age in African countries for generations. The extreme physical hazards suffered by adolescent women undergoing the excision of part of their genitals had been no match for tradition. 91 million women have been victims of this sadistic practice, often done without proper medical instruments and no anesthesia or antibiotics. This custom had been required for all girls before they would be fit for marriage, and often resulted in chronic pain, disease, or death.  Finally, Uganda girls are free from compulsory physical torture. Down with patriarchal oppression; long live women’s rights over their own bodies!

Cut to me reading a second article on a piece of Ugandan legislation about to go before Parliament for a vote. I am stunned, staring blankly at my computer screen with my mouth agape and my heart in my throat. Uganda is debating an anti-homosexuality bill which will impose the death penalty for those actively engaged in homosexual behavior. It’s hard to fathom that a person’s sexual orientation can be declared a “behavior” so perverse and deleterious to society that a natural expression of sexuality is grounds for his murder. As if that doesn’t seem like a big enough step back into the Dark Ages, the witch hunts will begin if this proposed bill is signed into law. Any Ugandan citizen who knows of a gay man living in the country has 24 hours to inform the government—or be imprisoned. What could be so dangerous about a minority group being able to co-exist peacefully within Ugandan society?

Government officials, including President Yoweri  Museveni and the Ethics and Integrity Minister, Nsaba Buturo,  consider homosexuality  a Western ploy to infiltrate African society,  pray on its children for sexual gratification and corrupt it’s Christian values. Therefore, hanging a man convicted of “aggravated homosexuality” is an issue of cultural integrity and child safety. This predatory view of homosexuality was promoted by several religious and conservative leaders from the US who have held anti-gay seminars in Uganda.  The most influential of these US politicians exporting discrimination are members of the controversial fundamentalist group “The Family”. The Family, now infamous in the Us after being mired in one scandal after another, is made up of powerful US politicians who seek to expand their anti-gay, pro-life, pro-market views throughout the world. Even with such powerful political influences at play, it seems unbelievably paranoid that the Uganda parliament would believe such propaganda. But then, this was a country that, until just recently, felt if a portion of a girl’s vagina wasn’t surgically removed she would mature into a promiscuous, immoral woman unfit to be a wife or mother.

And so we have our political two-step at work in Uganda: One giant leap forward for women’s rights and one homicidal step back for civil rights. How do I make sense of this divergent path in Ugandan political development?  It is not an obvious, linear progression toward greater social justice and equality, nor is it an unobstructed path toward despotism. It’s one step forward for human rights and then two steps back for human rights.  How’s that for a head scratcher?

This recent diametric trend in social policy in Uganda is a microcosm for the way politics play out around the globe. It exemplifies the capricious way in which the decisions made at the legislative level reflect interests and views that are based on political concerns, as often as reasoned debate or concern for the social good. It’s playing out right now in our country, in Europe, in Asia and beyond. What the, often contradictory—and sometimes downright diametrical—nature of “progress” means to us, is that our right to live according to our own conscience and integrity is never secure. In our fight for justice and equality there will never be a clear victory. It is an eternal struggle we wage, settling for a battle well-fought here, or a temporary triumph there.  In other words, we must be diligent in keeping up the fight for our liberty and rights, or we will find that the political dance that governs us might one day march to a tyrannical beat.