The bill hasn’t seen as much press coverage as you might expect, but it has spawned some headlines I hope never to see again. The BBC wins the prize for most alarming, with “Should homosexuals be executed?” as if the prospect was merely thought-provoking and ripe for discussion.

The headline, from a post on the BBC website, actually turns out to be part of a show broadcast on the BBC World Service called Have Your Say. The episode—which aired on Wednesday and is still available online)—makes for powerful listening. A woman calls in from Zambia to say she can’t understand how a female can look at another female in a sexual way. When the host presses her on whether she would actually support the death penalty for doing so, she says, “Being executed for being something sinful, it’s okay.” From her tone of voice as she utters those final two words you could easily imagine she was talking about a vegetable she doesn’t like, but that she’d be willing to eat if it ended up on her plate.

The debate over this bill should be a warning to every casual homophobe the world over: this is where revulsion for your fellow man leads you. This is what happens when communities let their intolerance go unchecked, when governments refuse to step in to defend the rights of minorities. And let’s be clear: this bill would government-stamp the elimination of a group of people based on a particular attribute. We have a word for that: it’s genocide.

The bill’s sponsors get around the word by claiming that homosexuality is chosen rather than innate, that it is something you do rather than something you are. But I think it’s telling that the caller above says “for being something sinful.” I think that’s more than a slip of the tongue. Homophobes often claim that homosexuality is something you can “recruit” another person into, or that it’s something you can choose to indulge or ignore, but I think a lot of that genuine revulsion towards queer people has its roots in the opposite belief.

The death penalty is something you advocate for a person whom you believe cannot be saved. The kind of hatred that inspires a person to call a radio show and say, “Gay people don’t deserve to live” does not come from the mere belief that a single act of same-sex intimacy is immoral. It comes from a belief that committing that act transforms you into something irredeemably other and unfit for society.

The ex-gay ministries whose efforts in Uganda gave rise to this bill have denounced it because they believe that gay people can be saved. But the bill is only the ministries’ basic premise taken to its logical conclusion. If you preach that being gay is grievously sinful, but you fail to convince your listeners that rehabilitation is effective, or if those “rehabilitation” attempts fail, it’s not hard to see how we end up here. Several people who call into the show to support the bill justify their position by claiming that that being gay is not a necessary attribute. The ex-gay movement needs to take their share of the responsibility for that.

I try not to get too involved in the question of whether queerness is innate, because in asking it we generally assume that being gay is abnormal. But it clearly matters in this case. A reaction as extreme as the death penalty speaks to a belief on the part of its advocates that gay people are fundamentally unlike them, that they are a species apart. That is what makes it genocide. And all we can hope for at this point is that, when the bill is debated in the Ugandan parliament tomorrow, the members recognize it as such.

Cate Simpson is a freelance journalist and the web and reviews editor for Shameless magazine. She lives in Toronto.

When Lusaka went smoke free, they really went smoke-free. Photo by Michael Musenga.

As the wheels hit the hot asphalt of the runway, I look up to see the frenetic expressions on the faces of my fellow passengers—a look that falls somewhere between anxious and anaphylactic, and it’s clear they’re desperate to get off the plane. It’s been a short and relatively painless flight from Nairobi, Kenya, to Lusaka, Zambia, our final destination. But these people obviously need a cigarette. Once nearly ubiquitous, smoking has been on the wane, particularly in Canada, where it seems new antismoking legislation comes into effect almost biweekly. First it was bars, then restaurants. Now even some patios are off limits to those who like to suck back thick blue smoke in the great outdoors.

There are new no-smoking laws cropping up in nearly every country, from Argentina to right here in Zambia. The developing world has been the tobacco industry’s cash cow for years now, as cigarette companies have replaced lapsed smokers in the United States, Canada, and Europe with millions of new ones in Asia and Africa.

Zambians aren’t much for smoking, actually: about 22 percent of Zambian adults light up, about the same as Canada—but Zambia’s anti-smoking laws are a lot more stringent. When I arrived in Lusaka, a new public smoking ban had been in effect for a little more than a month. On the surface, the ban is similar to legislation you might find in any other country in the world: smoking is prohibited in public spaces, and failure to comply is punishable by a fine of 400,000 Zambian kwachas, or around $100 (roughly the average monthly income in Zambia) and up to two years in prison.

But in Zambia the term “public space” has been left entirely open to interpretation. In fact, any public space under the jurisdiction of Zambian law must adhere to the new smoking ban. This includes restaurants, bars, and shopping centres, but also open-air markets or parking lots—effectively any space outside of your own home. The ban is further complicated by the fact that it may be enforced not only by police officers, but also “complainants,” essentially any civilian who finds your smoke offensive and decides you’re violating the law. A spokesperson for the Lusaka city council went so far as to suggest that the law might be enacted retroactively against a person who still had the lingering smell of cigarettes on him or her, even if he or she weren’t actually smoking.

I don’t smoke, but a straw poll of friends and colleagues who do suggested they were confused and concerned. The police themselves, who are tasked with enforcing the new law, have few directions as to what constitutes a “public space.” Smoking friends worried they may have to pay a “fee” (in reality, a bribe) to avoid arrest. It remains to be seen whether the new law will improve the health of Zambian citizens, but it certainly means my fellow plane passengers will have a while yet to wait before crossing the tarmac, claiming their bags, leaving the airport, and finding a secluded place to furtively strike a match.