NAIROBI (Reuters) – US President Barack Obama told Africans yesterday that discriminating against gays was like treating people differently because of race, drawing criticism from anti-gay activists who said he was imposing his morality on the continent.
The comments in Kenya by Obama, whose father was Kenyan and who Africans claim as their son, exposed the divide on gay rights between Western states and religiously conservative Africa where many states ban homosexual relations.
“As an African American in the United States I am painfully aware of what happens when people are treated differently,” Obama told a news conference in Nairobi during his first trip as president to his father’s homeland.
Standing next to Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Obama said his message across Africa was the same: “When you start treating people differently, not because of any harm they are doing to anybody but because they are different, that’s the path whereby freedoms begin to erode.”
Obama, who embraced gay marriage in 2012 during his re-election campaign, hailed last month’s US Supreme Court decision to allow same-sex marriage in the United States.
Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto, who attended talks with Obama, had said in May there was “no room” for gays in Kenya, where homosexual relations are outlawed.
Anti-gay laws often have broad public approval in African nations where many hold conservative religious views and see homosexuality as immoral.
“He is connecting himself to Africa but he is offending the values of Africa,” said Kidaha Vincent, who heads Kenya’s fringe Republican Liberty Party.
In response to the same question, Kenyatta said the United States and Kenya shared many values but not in all areas, saying gay rights was a “non-issue” for Kenyans.
