homosexuality debate in Kenya un-muted as key figures start questioning homophobia

By Mwangi Githahu (Nairobi )

July 8, 2005: Nairobi - Over the two weeks when gays and lesbians in Spain and Canada were marking significant victories in the continuing struggle for LGBT rights, Kenya's LGBT community also received a glimmer of hope, though nowhere on the same scale as same sex marriage.

During the first week of July, a lawyer in the western Kenya town of Eldoret was reported in a national newspaper as calling for a debate on homosexuality.

The lawyer, Alfred Nyairo Momanyi, issued a statement in which he urged the Anglican Church of Kenya to lead the debate. He however added that the issue should not be left to the church alone but should be discussed by society as a whole.

Momanyi was quoted in part as saying: "Gay people should be sympathized with."

Later in the week, the BBC's World Service radio broadcast a programme on which the matter of male to male rape in Kenyan and Tanzanian prisons was discussed.

Meanwhile, recently a team of researchers from Kenya's premier polling firm, the Steadman Group, carried out what they refer to as their Social Political Economic and Cultural (SPEC) barometer poll. As well as the political questions, they also asked some questions to see what perception Kenyans have on gays and lesbians.

However, while the Kenyan media concentrated on the political angle of the poll, the public's perception of the gay and lesbian community was largely ignored only getting a brief mention in one of the national Sunday papers.

The poll results were significant in that they showed that 32 per cent of Kenyans felt that gay and lesbian people should be accepted by society at large. This was the first time that such information was made public and it is thought it could prove useful to the fledgling LGBT groups in Kenya.

Such groups may now be in a position to gauge what sort of support they might expect from the public and perhaps even politicians in the struggle for LGBT rights in Kenya.

However, apart from that little glimmer of light for the community, the rest of the poll gave cold comfort.

For instance, if anyone seriously thought there could be moves in the near future for Kenya's LGBT community to gain access to same sex unions, a quick reading of the survey will show that a large percentage of Kenyans said they strongly disagreed with same sex marriages.
In the survey it was also found that despite only 12 per cent of the population admitting to knowing any homosexuals, 98 per cent of the population said gays and lesbians should not hold public office.

Clearly, homosexuality remains a taboo subject in Kenyan society.

Perhaps someone should do a study to find out exactly how many gay and lesbian Kenyans there are in the first place. The results of such a survey could be explosive.