On Christmas Eve the Church of England finally broke its silence on a proposed Ugandan law that would impose the death penalty on gay sex. Speaking on the Today programme Ugandan-born Archbishop of York John Sentamu said he’s ‘quite unhappy’ about the wording of the bill, and opposes the death penalty on principle. But he added that that when seen in context the bill was nothing new: ‘Sometimes people have not understood that at the moment the law in Uganda, without this bill, does exactly the same thing.’ Maybe I should defer to his greater knowledge of Ugandan society but I couldn’t help but feel that he was pulling his punches. My fear is that Sentamu might actually throw people off the scent of the true nature of the bill, that it does substantially harden existing legal penalties and is more than a continuation of traditional prejudice.

Of course, if the essentials of the bill are already law it takes the heat off the Church for its silence and makes those who have made a fuss look a bit silly. However, as I understand it, although Ugandan law already criminalises homosexuality and punishes all forms of rape by execution, this bill demands the execution of those found guilty of consensual gay sex if it falls under the heading of ‘aggravated homosexuality,’ where the accused is, for example, a ‘serial offender.’ It also extends the sentence for all other gay acts from fourteen years to life.

This bill is not a historical hangover, but rather the most extreme manifestation of a modern, politicised homophobia that has been sweeping across sub-Saharan Africa. Zanzibar kicked things off in 2004 with an anti-sodomy law. Burundi criminalised homosexuality in April 2009. A similar law is waiting to be introduced in Nigeria, where the northern states already have the death penalty. Rwanda is considering amending its penal code to criminalise homosexuality and those who ‘sensitise’ people to it. Two men in Malawi have been arrested for holding a marriage ceremony and could face 14 years in jail. Homosexuality has become shorthand for a nebula of concerns about AIDS, social dissolution and encroaching liberal western influence. These attitudes converge with and are stoked by religious fundamentalists – Christian evangelical and Muslim – active in the area and looking for a new front for their culture war against the permissive society.

The Church of England’s fear of losing its African congregation to evangelicals may explain its weaseliness on the subject, but there’s no reason why the British government should not take a stand. Gordon Brown, to his credit, already told Uganda’s President Museveni that the bill is unacceptable at the last Commonwealth summit, but we could go further. The document that sets out the membership criteria for Commonwealth members commits them to believe ‘in equal rights for all citizens regardless of gender, race, colour, creed or political belief.’ We should either insist that this be interpreted as including the rights of people of whatever sexual orientation or move that it should be amended to include this.

Meanwhile, if any aspect of the Ugandan bill is passed, we should review overseas aid to Kampala. Even if the death penalty is dropped following international pressure, the rest of the law, which includes three years’ imprisonment for anyone who fails to report any homosexual activity within 24 hours, still imposes more draconian penalties on homosexuals than the Nuremberg Laws imposed on Jews. It will legitimise witch hunts and impede efforts to stamp out HIV/AIDS by stigmatising the most vulnerable group into silence.

All this may put us on collision course with other Commonwealth countries who have similar anti-gay laws, but we need to confront the fact that this strain of homophobia is not a vestigial prejudice that is just going to crumble away. It is an aggressive and ascendant ideology and Britain should use all the policy levers at its disposal to combat it.