Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:08 pm
President Obama’s “Obamigration” to Kenya, his father’s birthplace, created a stir, not only in Kenya itself, but with America’s Religious Right, opposed to the president’s stance on equal rights for gays and lesbians.
Watch the joint press conference of Presidents Obama and Kenyatta yesterday at the Kenyan State House in Nairobi, Kenya:
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The president addressed some serious concerns – equality for gays and lesbians – and also showed some humor, taking a stab at birthers when he quipped at a state dinner hosted by Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta,
“I suspect that some of my critics back home are suspecting that I’m back here to look for my birth certificate. That is not the case.”
It was not the president’s first birther joke, and will no doubt not be his last, with Donald Trump leading the Republican polls.
This was a homecoming of sorts of Obama, as he told the Global Entrepreneurship Summit yesterday:
I’m proud to be the first U.S. president to visit Kenya, and obviously, this is personal for me. There’s a reason why my name is Barack Hussein Obama. My father came from these parts and I have family and relatives here. And in my visits over the years, walking the streets of Nairobi, I’ve come to know the warmth and the spirit of the Kenyan people.
As you can see, for many Kenyans as well, whatever their tribe, this was a homecoming, and they welcomed Obama with open arms.
President Barack Obama greets embassy staff and their families during a meet and greet at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, July 25, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
The president’s theme was “Africa is on the move” and he showed enthusiasm for the physical changes he could see in Kenya:
This continent needs to be a future hub of global growth and not just African growth. Kenya is leading the way. When I was here in Nairobi 10 years ago, it looked very different than it does today.
Obama also took the time to address Kenya’s culture of corruption and terrorism from al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab. Corruption can be ended, he said, and pointed to efforts to defeat al-Shabab. So even when addressing problems, he was upbeat.
On security, the United States and Kenya are already strong partners, and today we reaffirm that we stand united in the face of terrorism…I also want to pay tribute to the sacrifices of Kenyan forces who serve in the African Union-led mission against al-Shabaab in Somalia, and to thank Kenya for hosting so many Somali refugees, who are also victims of al-Shabaab.
Today, we discussed deepening our security cooperation. As part of our Security Governance Initiative, our governments signed an action plan yesterday in which we’ll support Kenya’s effort to strengthen its judiciary, police and border security. We also discussed broader efforts to counter violent extremism, here in Kenya and around the world — efforts that are advanced when there is rule of law, respect for human rights, a space for civil society and peaceful dissent, and when we welcome all communities as our partners. All our nations are going to have to work together in order for us to be successful.
Civil rights were another matter entirely. In Kenya, “homosexuality” can earn you a 14-year prison sentence.
Against the wishes of Kenyan pastors, whom CBN reports did not want Obama to bring “gay talk” to Kenya, the president spoke what he believes at his joint press conference with President Kenyatta:
If somebody is a law-abiding citizen who is going about their business and working in a job and obeying the traffic signs and doing all the other things good citizens are supposed to do and not harming anybody, the idea that they are going to be treated differently or abused because of who they love is wrong. Full stop.
According to World Net Daily, this was a “lecture,” and Obama was speaking out of turn.
Kenyatta was unaccepting: “This issue is not on the foremost mind of Kenya — and that is a fact.”
There are some things we must admit we don’t share; our culture, our society don’t accept. It is very difficult for us to be able to impose on people that which they themselves do not accept.
The anti-Semitic Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association was even more vociferous in his opposition to Obama’s words:
President Obama’s legacy is going to be that he has done more to export sexual deviancy than any American in the history of the republic. That’s going to be his legacy. This will be the man that exported sexual deviancy, that made the exportation of sexual deviancy the most dangerous product that the United States ever shipped overseas is going to be President Obama’s legacy.
It’s called civil rights. You might not be aware of this, Mr. Fischer, being more familiar with religious tyranny.
The president follows up his Kenya trip by becoming the first American president to visit Ethiopia, home of the African Union. Ethiopians are also excited, but the excitement of some is tempered by their bigotry.
The Associated Press reports that “Memihir Dereje Negash, of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church-linked Weyiniye Teklehaimanot Association” complained that, ‘All religions in Ethiopia should oppose the president if he raises the gay issue here.'”
No matter where they’re from, bigots are all the same.
There is no pleasing religious bigots, and Obama certainly knows this. But then, he wasn’t elected by them or on their behalf. He is an American president, expressing American values of liberty and equal rights for all. And that is why we elected him and not Mitt Romney, who would be delivering a very different message to Africans, if he had bothered to show up at all.
Photo from Twitter
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
