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Kenya protesters warn Obama against bringing up gay rights during visit

Kenyan anti-gay protesters marched in Nairobi Monday warning US President Barack Obama not to speak about gay rights when he visits the country of his ancestors later this month. "We do not want Obama and Obama, we do not want Michelle and Michelle," they chanted. "We want Obama and Michelle and we want a child!"…
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Kenyan anti-gay protesters marched in Nairobi Monday warning US President Barack Obama not to speak about gay rights when he visits the country of his ancestors later this month.

“We do not want Obama and Obama, we do not want Michelle and Michelle,” they chanted. “We want Obama and Michelle and we want a child!”

“It is important for us as Kenyans to know that the US is not God,” said protest organiser and evangelical Christian pastor Bishop Mark Kariuki.

Kariuki said Obama was welcome to visit “his father’s home” but should not “talk about the gay issue.”

The demonstration drew around 100 people, wearing T-shirts and waving posters with the slogan “Protect The Family”.

It came a day after Kenya’s deputy president William Ruto, who is on trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague accused of crimes against humanity, told worshippers at a church service that homosexuality was “against the plan” of God.

“We have heard that in the US they have allowed gay relations and other dirty things,” Ruto said, according to the Daily Nation newspaper.

“I want to say as a Christian leader that we will defend our country Kenya, we will stand for our faith and our country.”

Ruto made similar comments in May when US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Kenya.

Homophobia is prevalent in many African countries and gay sex remains illegal in several nations, including Kenya where it was outlawed under British colonial legislation.

The march Monday was organised by the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, a coalition of several churches.

Obama’s visit later this month will be his fourth to Africa since becoming US president, but his first to Kenya since taking office in 2009. He will also travel to Ethiopia.

Pro-gay rights activists warned of rising intolerance in Kenya, including attacks on homosexuals and alleged cases of lesbians being raped to “cure” them.

“The anti gay movement is spreading to Kenya… cases of discrimination and violence are increasing because of the very homophobic speeches,” said lawyer Erik Gitari, from the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

“Obama has been associated with equality and liberation, being the first black US president. They are afraid that he will preach equality here,” said Gitari.

5 Comments

  • Author’s gravatar

    This man and gay, thats the only thing he has to offer to offer Africa his fatherland.

    • Author’s gravatar

      In actual fact, President Obama has a more progressive vision for Africa than most African presidents.

      To begin with, the decision to allow gay marriages in the United States was decided by the United States Supreme Court in response to a court case, not by the President through an executive order.

      Those in Kenya who are cautioning President Obama against exporting homosexuality to Kenya are largely unaware of the limited powers that the president of the United States wields in the United States in respect of moral issues.

      President Obama will travel to Kenya to discuss business, commerce, innovation, and entrepreneurship, not homosexuality.

      Secondly, President Obama has put in place a number of initiatives designed to advance African interests that, sadly, many Africans are unaware of, but that, if properly effected, will take the whole of the African continent far beyond where Africa’s contemporary leaders have taken it.

      Two readily available examples are the plan to light up Africa through the provision of electric supply across the continent and the programme to develop young African leaders in order to strengthen Africa politically and socially.

      Here are some references:

      https://www.state.gov/p/af/rt/pyali/

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/02/a-closer-look-at-obamas-7-billion-plan-to-bring-electricity-to-africa/

      For the sake of argument, let’s assume that you are an African: Africans, especially those on the continent, should avoid the ongoing American right-wing attempt to discredit President Obama on spurious grounds.

      • Author’s gravatar

        InternetPatroler, Kenyans or the rest of us in Africa did not say president Obama has not done any useful or tangable things in Africa, what the people are saying is that as he Obama visit, he should not made made mention of the worrd Gay there not to course crises in a holy land. Because they don’t believe in that and u can not force then to your believe. So if it’s in the program of the President to speak on that he better stay back in America so that there can be relative peace back home! Abi Oil is there oil in Kenya! ?……… u knw wht I mean!

        • Author’s gravatar

          General:

          I don’t think that President Obama will broach the subject of homosexuality while in Kenya. The issue will not be on the agenda of the meeting in Nairobi. On the contrary, the dignitaries will focus on innovation, entrepreneurship, business, etc., in general and in Africa in particular. Secondly, Obama is too smart to lecture Africans on the subject at the present moment in time knowing full well the sensitivity that surrounds the topic in Africa. He will not spoil the mood of the occasion by redirecting debate away from Africa’s economic development toward that subject. You do not rise to the pinnacle of American society on the basis of lack of wisdom.

  • Author’s gravatar

    Kenyan leaders, both political and religious, are warning President Obama to not include and promote his freedom-justified “gay” rights agenda during his forthcoming July Kenya visit.

    BUT Kenya is a democracy.

    …it believes in freedom of rights (which includes freedom of speech)

    …it believes in freedom of all religions

    …it believes in the freedom and right of ‘polygamous’ relationships and marriage.

    Did not the One Creator say that “a man shall be joined to his wife, and they shall become ONE flesh”?…Yes He did. (Genesis 2:24)

    The One Creator did NOT say that a man shall be joined to many wives if he so chooses…. thus creating “multiple unions” would make it impossible for them to become one flesh.

    And yet, because of their love for their “freedom and rights” they have justified polygamy to be good in their eyes.

    And they also believe in FREEDOM of all religions, i.e. religious liberty, which confesses that it is RIGHT , a right, to be free to worship ANY ‘god’ as per one’s self-interest.

    Did not the One Creator say that man is to worship Only Him, that man is not to worship any other ‘gods’? Yes.

    Therefore in other words, The One Creator commanded man that he is NOT free to worship any other ‘gods / religions’, for if he were to do so the judgement and penalty of this disobedience (this self taken freedom) would be eternal death.

    The Kenyans worship the SAME IMAGE of FREEDOM that President Obama proclaims, except that in their majority “religious” self-righteousness “their freedom voice” is more powerful than the freedom voice of the homosexuals… for now.

    BUT both have the same mark, name / character, number / values of FREEDOM on their foreheads or hands which gives allegiance to the beast world leader of SELF-FREEDOM.

    The Lord Jesus Christ said the we are to worship ONLY the One Lord your Creator God and Him Alone to SERVE in obedience and love, love for Him first and foremost, and love for, to do GOOD according to the One Truth, to the fellow man, whether friend or foe.

    Very soon, the Lord Jesus Christ will return to rule the earth in obedience and power as the One King according to the Will of ‘I AM’, and NOT according to man’s first love for “his freedom”, for his desire to serve and magnify oneself (XES).

    …and man will weep and clench his teeth in intense anger when “his freedom” will be no more.