Thursday, 27 June 2013

Obama promotes gay rights in Africa

U.S. President Barack Obama, left, shakes hands with Senegalese President Macky Sall after a joint press conference at the presidential palace in Dakar, Senegal, Thursday, June 27, 2013. President Obama arrived in Senegal Wednesday night to kick off a weeklong trip to Africa, a three-country visit aimed at overcoming disappointment on the continent over the first black U.S. president's lack of personal engagement during his first term. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
President Barack Obama on Thursday praised the Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage as a "victory for American democracy" but clashed with his African host over gay rights in a sign of how far the movement has to go internationally.
Obama said recognition of same-sex unions in the United States should cross state lines and that equal rights should be recognized universally. It was his first chance to expand on his thoughts about the ruling, which was issued Wednesday as he flew to Senegal, one of many African countries that outlaw homosexuality. Senegalese President Macky Sall rebuffed Obama's call for Africans to give gays equal rights under the law.

Obama said gay rights didn't come up in their private meeting at the presidential palace, a mansion that looks somewhat similar to the White House. But Obama said he wants to send a message to Africans that while he respects differing personal and religious views on the matter, it's important to have nondiscrimination under the law.
"People should be treated equally, and that's a principle that I think applies universally," he said.
A report released Monday by Amnesty International says 38 African countries criminalize homosexuality. In four of those — Mauritania, northern Nigeria, southern Somalia and Sudan — the punishment is death. These laws appear to have broad public support. A June 4 Pew Research Center survey found at least nine of 10 respondents in Senegal, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Nigeria believe homosexuality should not be accepted by society.
Sall sought to reassure Obama that gays are not persecuted in Senegal.
Under Senegalese law, "an improper or unnatural act with a person of the same sex" can be punished by up to five years in prison.
And as recently as February of 2008, police rounded up men suspected of being homosexual after a Senegalese tabloid published photographs of a clandestine gay wedding in a suburb of Dakar. Gays went into hiding and those who could fled to neighboring countries, but they were pushed out of Gambia by the president's threat of decapitation.

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