Kenyan Gays And Lesbians Panicked After Prime Minister Gives Speech Suggesting Those Caught Engaged In Homosexual Acts Will Be Imprisoned

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga said Sunday homosexuals caught in the midst of sex acts will be arrested, creating panic among gays and lesbians, the Associated Press reporting that in an audio recording of the prime minister’s speech, Odinga can be heard saying “if a man is caught having sex with the other we jail them, or if a girl is caught with the other ...we will jail them,” using a profanity to describe lesbianism. He added “We want a country that is clean, a clean way of doing things that has clean mannerisms ... we do not want things to do with sodomy.” Currently, Kenyan law prohibits “sex against nature” and that charge is punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Nguru Kargugu, of the office of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya, said that the organisation has been inundated with phone calls from the country’s gay and lesbian community, some of whom are HIV-positive and fear they face arrest when they collect life-prolonging medication from government clinics. A spokesperson for the prime minister released a statement late Sunday saying that Odinga was being quoted out of context, Dennis Onyango saying that the prime minister was trying to articulate how opposition groups, against the country’s new constitution adopted in August, were employing fear tactics in an effort to have citizens vote against it, Onyango saying that the prime minister was offering two examples of opposition propaganda that the new constitution would create laws to legalise gay marriage. Awkwardly, attempting to defend Odinga, Onyango said that during the speech, the prime minister “then added a rider that even if the constitution allowed gay marriages, census data showed there were more women than men in Kenya and people would naturally go for marriage with the opposite sex. The highlight on the alleged order for a crackdown completely missed the point.”