Obama in Africa: President won’t back down on gay rights issues

President Obama voiced strong support for gay rights in Africa on Thursday as he began a trip to the continent, bucking calls from some African leaders to keep his views on such controversial issues to himself. Obama, who departed from Washington, D.C., late Thursday for a trip to Kenya and Ethiopia, had faced criticism from rights groups and growing calls to press such issues aggressively while in a region known for a bleak record on human rights. In one interview, Obama said he had been “blunt” with African leaders about gay rights in the past and planned to make them part of his agenda for this trip. Asked about Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto, a critic of gay rights in the U.S., Obama said: “Yeah, well, I disagree with him on that, don’t I?”

Everybody deserves fair treatment — equal treatment — in the eyes of the law and the state. And that includes gays, lesbians, transgender persons.

President Obama

The issue of gay rights is not a primary reason for the visit, though. The White House says the trip, Obama’s fourth to the continent as president, is an important opportunity for him not only to promote trade and investment with Africa, but to also check in with important Horn of Africa partners in the fight against Islamic extremism. The U.S. and Kenya work together to counter al-Shabab, the Islamic militant group based in neighboring Somalia that has carried out numerous attacks in Kenya, including the mass killing of university students in April, the 2013 attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, the capital, and the bombing of the U.S. Embassy, also in Nairobi, in 1998.

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