UPDATE: Warren Throckmorton reports that Bahati “will not be attending the National Prayer Breakfast according to sources with the Fellowship Foundation,” and that “NPB officials and Congressional leaders were taking action to assure that Bahati did not come.” [h/t’s to Lionel Diemel and Box Turtle Bulletin]
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Uganda MP David Bahati – the as-yet unmoved mover of the kill-the-gays bill currently in parliament – told Daily Monitor‘s Angelo Izama he plans to be at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.
The Breakfast, of course, is The Family’s annual signature event, held on the first Thursday in February, and regularly attended by the President of the United States. (President Obama is currently scheduled to attend.) According to author Jeff Sharlet, the Breakfast is regarded by The Family “as merely a tool in a larger purpose: to recruit the powerful attendees into smaller, more frequent prayer meetings, where they can meet Jesus man to man.'”
The guest list doesn’t end with Bahati. Sharlet recently told Voice of America that Uganda’s Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo also plans to be in D.C. on Feb. 4. Buturo has been a strong supporter of the proposed legislation.
How much store ought we to set by this news? Linkages between Family-fueled, anti-gay American zealotry and the Ugandan crisis have been well documented, here and elsewhere. Still, it’s easy enough to imagine that a Family invitation to breakfast with Bahati and Buturo might be revoked and their credentials refused, especially if the headline plays as a showdown between the Family and the White House.
Box Turtle Bulletin frames the question succintly:
Also, every U.S. President since Eisenhower has attended and spoken at the breakfast. Will President Obama agree to share the same room with these two would-be murderers?