On Thursday of this week, in South Africa, people held their breath and prayed that this would not be the day when the hospitalized 92-year-old icon of peace and tolerance, Nelson Mandela, would leave them. His fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, on the same day, opened the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice in South Africa saying, "Whether you are tall or short, beautiful or ugly, clever or not clever, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, white or black – wow, you are of infinite worth." And, on the very same day as the world was praying for Mandela to recover and while Tutu was extolling the virtues of "caring and compassion" to his audience, a gay activist in Uganda was bludgeoned to death. The victim, David Kato, was an advocate for the gay rights group Sexual Minorities Uganda. Earlier, Kato's photo, along with the names of other gay people in Uganda, had appeared on the front page of an anti-gay magazine next to the caption, "Hang Them." The murders and attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona earlier this month re-opened our national debate on the role of hate speech in inciting violence. But intolerance and hate, wrapped in religion, is not solely a domestic product in the U.S. It has been exported to countries around the world. In 2009, evangelical Christians from the United States found fertile ground for their homophobic bile in Uganda. These anti-gay, modern day missionaries, gave talks and presented conferences demonizing gay people and then feigned shock when their hate-mongering resulted in the introduction of legislation in Uganda that would make homosexuality punishable by death. As the gay rights organization, the Human Rights Campaign, said in their response to the murder of David Kato, "These American extremists didn't call for David's death. But they created a climate of hate that breeds violence…" A surviving gay activist in Uganda was more direct. Val Kalende said, "David's death is a result of the hatred planted in Uganda by U.S. evangelicals in 2009. The Ugandan government and the so-called U.S. evangelicals must take responsibility for David's blood." Had David Kato been murdered in South Africa, you can be assured that former President Mandela and Archbishop Tutu would have condemned the murder in the strongest of terms. Had evangelicals come to South Africa in 2009 and fanned the flames of intolerance, their anti-gay rhetoric would have been extinguished with calls for solidarity, compassion and love. That is why the world prays for Nelson Mandela today. That is why, though occasionally disagreeing with him, the world still listens to Desmond Tutu. Because every person – no matter the color of their skin or their sexual orientation – is of "infinite worth." To honor Nelson Mandela's life, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu's work and the memory of David Kato, sign on to the Human Rights Campaign's petition to stop exporting hate in the name of religion. Visit www.hrc.org.