US has no moral authority to lecture Uganda on gay rights

By Antony Kochiyo

Siaya, KENYA: The recent warning from White House directed to Uganda concerning the signing into law of an anti-gay law by President Yoweri Museveni was as misplaced as it was irrelevant.

Purporting to represent the US with what is widely seen as a personal opinion, President Barack Obama does not have the moral authority to state that the legislation would sever ties between the US and Uganda.

This is to suggest that the ties that bind these two nations were founded on gay laws or rights.

It is common knowledge that in the US, about 33 states have not legalised gay marriage.

How then does Obama expect Uganda to listen to him if in his own country, a whopping 66 per cent of the states have a ban on gay marriage?

As for the nation’s allies, the US is known to have a great ally in the UK yet Northern Ireland  has stated that it does not intend to introduce legislation allowing for same-sex marriage.

Has this severed the bond that exists between these great powers? Obama should tell the world.

Another great ally of the US is Israel, and under Israeli law, same-sex marriage cannot legally be performed.

Indeed, under the confessional community system that operates in Israel, each of the recognised confessional communities regulates the personal status, including marriage and divorce, of its members.

The country views marriage as a religious institution and as such does not issue marriage licences, securing separation of church and State and also preventing conflict between the various religions in the country.

The religious authority for the Jewish majority marriages is the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and there are parallel authorities for Christians, Muslims, Druze and nine Christian authorities, with a total of 15 religious courts.

These regulate all marriages and divorces for their own communities, and currently, they all oppose same-sex marriages.

There are many other examples of nations that oppose gay marriages and it is not upon President Obama or any other person to decide for Uganda its laws as a condition for friendship.

Indeed, as President Museveni puts it, the “valued relationship” between the two nations cannot be sustainably maintained by one society being subservient to another society.

There are a myriad acts societies in the West do that Ugandans, and many other African communities, frown upon or even detest, but they do not comment on these acts or make them preconditions for a relationship.