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.