President Barack Obama will put an emphasis on the importance of LGBT rights in his state visit to Kenya, he told the BBC.
Despite several trips to Africa during his presidency, this it the first time the President has visited Kenya — the birthplace of his father — while in office. In an interview with the BBC ahead of his trip, Obama made clear that he would be raising the issue of LGBT rights with Kenya’s president, despite protests from some politicians in the nation.
“The deputy president in Kenya, who you’re going to meet, Mr Ruto, he said, ‘We have heard that in the US they have allowed gay relations and other dirty things,'” BBC correspondent Jon Sopel told the President.
“Yeah. Well, I disagree with him on that, don’t I?” Obama responded. “And I’ve had this experience before when we’ve visited Senegal in my last trip to Africa.
“I was very blunt about my belief that everybody deserves fair treatment, equal treatment in the eyes of the law and the state,” he continued. “And that includes gays, lesbians, transgender persons. I am not a fan of discrimination and bullying of anybody on the basis of race, on the basis of religion, on the basis of sexual orientation or gender.”
The President declared that LGBT rights would be “front and center” as part of his agenda, alongside Kenya’s treatment of women and girls. Mr. Obama emphasized his personal connection to the nation, which fueled a desire to see greater equality in the region.
“As somebody who has family in Kenya and knows the history of how the country so often is held back because women and girls are not treated fairly, I think those same values apply when it comes to different sexual orientations,” he said.
The President won’t have an easy task ahead of him in convincing Kenyans that LGBT rights are an important part of improving their nation. A UN report determined that homosexuality is “largely considered to be taboo and repugnant to [the] cultural values and morality” of Kenya. Sex between men is illegal, punishable by up to 21 years in prison, while transgender individuals are often subject to stigma and violence from the general public.
"The first time I said the words, 'I'm gay,' in front of my family was November of 2020," says Will Larkins.
Yet even that experience wasn't an "official" coming out. To hear the 17-year-old junior at Winter Park High School, in Winter Park, Florida, describe it, the revelation was more of an aside than a conversation.
"I knew that there was something different about me since kindergarten," says Larkins, who identifies as both gay and nonbinary and uses multiple personal pronouns. "I just was different. And I knew that, but I didn't have the words to describe it.
"Growing up, I was not educated on the queer community. Even though it was very blatantly obvious that I was queer in kindergarten, I didn't have a label for it until seventh grade. I went to a small school, so I was the only feminine guy that I knew. It was like the boys were like this and the girls were like this, and then there was me.
Audiences need not be steeped in knowledge of Nigerian culture to appreciate Round House Theatre's uproariously funny regional premiere of Jocelyn Bioh's Nollywood Dreams (★★★★☆). But it helps to know that, while Nigeria's robust film industry, commonly referred to as Nollywood, rivals global leaders Hollywood and Bollywood in sheer volume of output and popularity, the films themselves often exude a certain low-budget cheesiness that's ripe for parody.
The spirited company, directed by Raymond O. Caldwell, plucks an abundance of comedic fruit from those vines, spoofing the Nollywood aesthetic and weaving the sweet tale of two sisters in '90s Lagos who dream of meeting movie stars.
A minister who regularly preaches against homosexuality, and has advocated for the death penalty to punish people who engage in homosexual behavior, recently railed against Pride Month at a city council meeting in Arlington, Texas.
"God's already ruled that murder, adultery, witchcraft, rape, bestiality, and homosexuality are crimes worthy of capital punishment," Jonathan Shelley, the pastor of Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth, said at last week's council meeting.
Shelley made the remarks during a public comment period along with several dozen other people who had come to the May 26 council meeting to demand that their elected officials stop recognizing June as LGBTQ Pride Month and remove displays about LGBTQ topics from local public libraries.
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