Obama, Kenyatta clash on gay rights in Kenya

[Valin]

Politico:

Edward-Isaac Dovere

7/25/15

 

NAIROBI, Kenya – President Barack Obama and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta sparred over support for gay rights here Saturday, with Obama urging fast changes and Kenyatta saying it was not something Kenyan culture or society would “accept.” Linking LGBT discrimination in Africa to the history of Jim Crow laws in America, Obama said ensuring gay rights must be a priority on a continent — and in a country — where bias against gays is accepted, and violence against gays is common.

 

Standing by Obama’s side at a joint press conference here in front of the Kenyan state house, Kenyatta repeated what he has said before about gay rights: it’s “a non-issue.” Kenyatta’s remarks were the ones that drew applause among the Kenyan audience.

 

Obama, though, delivered a firm message: People may have their own personal biases, he said, but the government has a responsibility to make sure those are not part of the law. “As an African-American in the United States, I am painfully aware of the history of what happens when people are treated differently under the law,” Obama said. “There were all sorts of rationalizations that were provided by the power structure for decades in the United States for segregation and Jim Crow and slavery, and they were wrong.”

 

 

(Snip)