Uganda: Obama's Next Target

It is unlikely that many Americans who watched Invisible Children's record-smashing viral video hit KONY 2012 were aware of IC's evangelical nature (1, 2) or of the nonprofit's early financing from foundations that back the hard Christian right, including one of the biggest funders of the 2008 push for California's anti-same sex marriage Proposition 8.

But Invisible Children, which has branded itself as welcoming cultural, religious, and sexual diversity, also enjoys extensive institutional and social ties to the global evangelical network known as The Fellowship (also known as "The Family") - which has been credited with inspiring and providing "technical support" [see footnote 1] for Uganda's internationally-denounced Anti Homosexuality Bill, also dubbed the "kill the gays" bill.

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This new breed of leaders being mentored by The Fellowship is to bring peace, prosperity, and harmony to Africa and the world through obedience to their unique brand of faith, one in which those of all religions - Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu - worship Jesus together while maintaining their ethnic identity. In his writings Jeff Sharlet describes the family as embracing "biblical capitalism" or an allegiance to free enterprise as the foundation for all other freedoms.

Family teaching eschews divisive theological doctrine; Catholics, Protestants and non-Christians are urged to unite under what Sharlet describes as the twin pillars of American fundamentalism - the privatization of resources and the public regulation of morality. Sharlet describes the The Fellowship as having brought Museveni, formerly a  "left-wing" dictator, to one of their Washington, D.C. houses, the Cedars, where Museveni was transformed into a believer and a "key [Family] man in Africa."

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Invisible Children's connection to The Fellowship's network provides an explanation of IC's early access [see footnote 2] to internationally powerful politicians; less than a year after the nonprofit was launched in 2005, Invisible Children had already gained political backing, from U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) and Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, both important Fellowship members.