Democratic and Republican members of the House and Senate have teamed to introduce resolutions condemning Uganda’s so-called “Kill the Gays” bill now pending in that country’s legislature, according to a report in the Advocate:

Democratic senators Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Ben Cardin of Maryland, with Republican senators Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Susan Collins of Maine, issued the resolution. California Democrat Howard Berman introduced the House version to the Foreign Affairs Committee, and it has been signed by more than three dozen other members, including Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin, committee ranking Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, and Congressional Black Caucus chair Barbara Lee of California. 

Both documents ask the Ugandan parliament to reject the bill.

The resolution says the United States cannot support Uganda’s efforts to make homosexuality punishable by death because of the “core American principles of equality and ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’” It also says that such laws undermine the United States’s efforts to fight HIV and AIDS in the region by stigmatizing and criminalizing vulnerable people. 

It also calls on other nations to reject laws that criminalize homosexuality.

“The proposed Ugandan bill not only threatens human rights, it also reverses so many of the gains that Uganda has made in the fight against HIV/AIDS,” (Rep. Tammy) Baldwin said in a statement on Thursday. “This issue has united leaders of different political and religious views in Uganda and worldwide in one common belief in the rights of all human beings regardless of sexual orientation.”