A key Senate committee approved a resolution Tuesday urging Ugandan lawmakers to dump a controversial anti-gay bill.

Tomeika Bowden, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer, confirmed to On Top Magazine that members had voted the resolution out of committee, but would not comment on when the full Senate would vote on the bill.

The resolution, authored by Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, calls on members of the Parliament of Uganda to reject MP David Bahati's bill that includes a death penalty provision for people who repeatedly engage in gay sex and those who are HIV-positive. The bill also bans the “promotion of homosexuality,” which would effectively outlaw political organizations, broadcasters and publishers that advocate on behalf of gay rights.

The bill's tangled language could allow straight folks to be put to death, as well. The death penalty provision applies to anyone who is found guilty of “aggravated homosexuality,” a term used to describe a repeat offender. Those offenses include failing to report to officials knowledge of a person who is gay. Therefore, a person does not need to engage in gay sex to bring the death penalty to bear.

Since its February introduction, the resolution had attracted 22 co-sponsors, including Republican Senators Bob Casey, Jr. of Pennsylvania, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Susan Collins of Maine.

A similar House resolution, also introduced in February, has yet to be heard in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The committee is chaired by California Representative Howard L. Berman, the resolution's primary sponsor.

Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama criticized the proposal at the National Prayer Breakfast in February. Obama described the measure as “odious.”

In addition to urging the Uganda Parliament to reject the anti-gay bill, the resolution also “urges all countries around the world to reject and repeal similar laws that criminalize homosexuality, and encourages the United States Department of State to closely monitor human rights abuses that occur because of sexual orientation.”