Obama Urged to Address LGBT Rights in Africa

[theHandpuppet]

TIME
Obama Urged to Address LGBT Rights in Africa
Advocates issue report on the dreadful state of LGBT rights in Africa, as world leaders and leading figures from the continent prepare for the US-Africa Leaders Summit
Elizabeth Dias
July 29, 2014

The White House will host more than 40 African heads of state for a three-day U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit next week, the first event of its kind and the largest such event any U.S. president has held with African governments. Some 200 African and U.S. CEOs are invited, and numerous faith leaders will gather to discuss their role in advancing development. To mark the historic event, LGBT advocates have issued a report on the state of LGBT rights in Africa. Their conclusion? It ain’t good.

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation and Human Rights First report contains some stark numbers. A total of 37 African nations currently criminalize same-sex relationships. Four countries—Mauritania, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan—allow for the death penalty against LGBT people in parts or in all of the country. Cameroon arrests more people based on their sexual orientation than any other country in the world. Ghana treats same-sex relationships as a misdemeanor punishable by up to three years in prison. In Kenya, the sentence is up to 14 years. Only one country, South Africa, grants full marriage equality to LGBT citizens.

The U.S.—Africa summit, these advocates argue, is the perfect time for the White House to stand up for LGBT rights on the continent. Voices for equality on the ground deserve U.S. support, they say, and the U.S. should help create the political environment to ensure human rights are respected.

“The United States should demonstrate its firm commitment to upholding the fundamental principle that LGBT rights are human rights,” Ty Cobb, director of global engagement at the Human Rights Campaign, says. “This includes making clear that the United States will be a champion of LGBT rights abroad, and that we will not tolerate efforts to enact state-sanctioned discrimination against LGBT people in any country.” ....

MORE at http://time.com/3051783/obama-urged-to-address-lgbt-rights-in-africa/

[theHandpuppet]

1. Unfortunately, the opposition to gay rights shows no signs of easing

LusakaTimes
Zambia
Catholic Bishops say threat to family life is more now than ever before
July 28, 2014

Catholic Bishops in the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA) say the threat to the family in AMECEA region is now more real than ever before as the crisis of marriage and the family has been increased by individualism in the contemporary society, breakdown of morals, and attacks on the family unit, poverty and unemployment.

The bishops have pledged that as a Church in the region, they will endeavour to protect the family which is the domestic Church against all these dangers.

“We commit ourselves to pastoral care of broken families and all those who are going through difficulties in their families. We also condemn all forms of domestic violence. We affirm institution of marriage as an indissoluble union of love between a man and a woman open to procreation and denounce any attempt to redefine this institution. Family life must be respected, promoted and protected so that it can provide men and women who can weave a social fabric of peace and harmony. We strongly condemn same sex unions and other deviations that go against human nature and natural law,” Read the Communiqué presented by Most Rev. Berhaneyesus Souraphiel, the new AMECEA Chairman.

“We urge for the protection and defence of the family at all costs as that is the beginning and pillar of human life and society. We seek to enable the family to be an instrument of New Evangelisation which is truly African and truly Christian. We welcome and await the fruits of the forth coming extra ordinary synods on marriage and family life.,” The Communiqué added.

MORE at http://www.lusakatimes.com/2014/07/28/catholic-bishops-say-threat-family-life-now-ever/