Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Sunday told CNN that Africans have more pressing issues to deal with than LGBT rights.
On his recent trip to Kenya, President Barack Obama talked about such rights in a joint press conference with Kenyatta.
“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 at the time.
“I’ve been consistent all across Africa on this. I believe in the principle of treating people equally under the law. The state should not discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation,” he added.
In speaking with CNN, Kenyatta said that to Kenyans gay rights “is not an issue.”
“Let me make it clear to you, I’ll put it this way. All right? Think first and foremost we’re all saying that whatever society you come from, the principal aim is that you must give the people, you know, their right to choose. Now, where we are, and on the level of development that we are at, I am not saying that these people don’t have their rights. That’s not what I’m saying. I am just saying that the majority, the majority in our society do not wish to legalize this issue of gay rights,” Kenyatta said on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS.
“People in Kenya are not at this point entitled. And that’s exactly what I said when we were with President Obama. To them this is not an issue. That they are going to put at the center. They have more pressing issues. However, that said I am also and will not allow people to persecute any individuals or to beat them or to torture them.”
“But what we’re saying is that as a society we do not accept some of these values. And this is where I’m saying we’ve got to get synergies. You’re not going to create the United States of America or Great Britain or the Netherlands in Kenya or in Nigeria or in Senegal or overnight. And we were to understand that these are processes and they’ll take time,” he added.
by Carlos Santoscoy
Source – On Top Magazine
