Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto Says Gays Have No Place In Country
Kenya just joined Russia in the list of countries that are homophobic. Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto declared on Sunday that homosexuality has no place in the African nation.
His spokesman added that being gay is unnatural and un-African. In defending his declaration, Ruto said at a Nairobi church gathering on Sunday that Kenya worships God and the nation has no room for gays, reports NBC.
In 2014, Uganda, another impoverish African nation, passed a law that provided tougher jail terms for gays, but an Ugandan court struck down the law. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who arrived in Kenya on Sunday, described the Ugandan law as atrocious.
Kerry has been critical on anti-gay regulations in Africa. Ruto is actually just reiterating a policy since 1963 in Kenya, which has declared homosexuality illegal.
Despite that policy, three Kenyan judges ordered last week the Non-Governmental Organization Co-ordination Board, a government agency, to register a human rights group that represents gays, but the agency refused on religious and moral grounds. Judges Isaac Lenaola, Mumbi Ngugi and George Odunga pointed out that the country’s constitution protects and recognises the rights of minorities.
The three said that Kenya “cannot rely on religious texts or its views of what the moral and religious convictions of Kenyans are to justify the limitation of a right.”
Eric Galari, a human rights activist, was reserving three names with the NGO board to register the planned gay rights organization. However, the board turned down the three names and three alternatives proposed by Galari, reports Associated Press.
After the board rejected his application, Galari filed a lawsuit in court in September 2013 that his right was violated. Due to Kenya’s law which makes gay sex a crime, gays in the country have complained of harassment by the police.
Meanwhile, in response to Ruto’s statement, Binyanga Wainana, a gay Kenyan writer, tweeted, “Kenya’s deputy president joins an important tradition by Africans in power to spread hate in church on a Sunday.”
To contact the writer, email: v.hernandez@ibtimes.com.au
