And he said when a government gets in the habit of treating any people differently, those habits can spread. So it is a subject of vigorous debate in Kenya.Īnyway, at this bilateral press conference with the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, President Obama said that his position on gay rights in Africa was unequivocal. This year, a prize-winning Kenyan novelist came out publicly as gay and then got into a Twitter fight with various public figures, including the vice president who said that there's no place for gays in Kenya. Although, we should say it's more complicated than that. Homosexuality is illegal in 38 African countries, including Kenya. WARNER: The gay rights issue was certain to come up. RATH: Then the president got into a rather public disagreement with the Kenyan president over the issue of gay rights.
This is a summit that he initiated in one very much in keeping with the president's foreign policy in Africa which is to build more trade relationships - this trade, not aid, approach - encouraging American private investment, especially in the next generation of African entrepreneurs, tech entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurs.
And then this morning, he opened the sixth Global Entrepreneurship Summit. He met with about three dozen relatives, some of whom he had never met, some he's known for decades like his half-sister Auma Obama. Greg, I understand the first thing the president did after stepping off the airline was to meet with his extended family. NPR's Gregory Warner has been traveling with the president.
President Obama is in Nairobi, Kenya, this weekend, the first trip of any sitting president to Kenya and, for Barack Obama, a complicated visit to the country of his father's birth.