“As long as you do it in private, we don’t care,” he said. Maina was not interested in public debates on gay rights, but added that Kenya’s vocal anti-gay extremists are equally indulging in unnecessary “provocation”.
“We don’t need to be saying it is deviant,” he said.
Deputy President William Ruto periodically addresses evangelical Christian churches to warn against homosexuality. There is “no room” for gays in Kenya he told worshippers in May, and in July railed against the US for allowing “gay relations and other dirty things.”
Anti-gay firebrand Irungu Kangata leads a cross-party caucus seeking to have the country’s existing anti-homosexuality laws – which include a maximum 14-year sentence – to be strictly applied and makes frequent media appearances to explain that “gayism” is a lifestyle choice that can and should be unmade.
Vincent Kadala, an aspiring politician whose Republican Liberty Party has no seats in parliament, threatened to rally 5,000 naked men and women in order to show Obama “the difference between a man and woman”.
The promised protest attracted a lot of media attention but was never held.
About The Author
