Micheal Ighodaro, an activist with Global Black Gay Men Connect, delivers remarks at a protest outside the Ugandan Embassy over the Uganda's parliamentary Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2023 on April 25, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

A Republican lawmaker gave a speech at a National Prayer Breakfast in Uganda in October in which he urged the nation to stand firm behind its new anti-homosexuality law which includes the death penalty, according to a report. 

The speech by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) was brought to light by the website The Young Turks and shared by Salon.

Walberg’s trip to the country had been funded by the Fellowship Foundation, known as The Family, a U.S. group that’s behind Uganda’s National Prayer Breakfast, according to congressional filings unearthed by The Young Turks.

As keynote speaker, video of which was shared in the report, he was seen endorsing other speakers, some of which called LGBTQ+ advocates “a force from the bottom of hell” and argued for “Christocracy” over democracy. 

Walberg “explicitly encouraged Uganda’s leaders to resist opposition to the law from the U.S., the U.N. and other global institutions,” the report stated.

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, who signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act into law in May, later said Walberg’s attendance showed there are Americans who “think like us,” according to the report.

The report said Walberg justified his presence through his role as co-chair of the U.S. National Prayer Breakfast.

The Anti-Homosexuality Law, commonly known as the “Kill the Gays Bill,” provides for prison sentences and execution for “aggravated homosexuality,” including “serial offenses.”

It has been widely condemned, with the Biden administration demanding that it be repealed.

But in his speech, Walberg said, “Though the rest of the world is pushing back on you, though there are other major countries that are trying to get into you and ultimately change you, stand firm. Stand firm.”

He went on, “Worthless is the thought of the world, worthless, for instance, is the thought of the World Bank, or the World Health Organization, or the United Nations, or, sadly, some in our administration in America who say, ‘You are wrong for standing for values that God created,’ for saying there are male and female and God created them.

“Whose side do we want to be on? God’s side. Not the World Bank, not the United States of America, necessarily, not the U.N. God’s side.”  By Adam Nichols, Rawstory