A White House official echoed President Uhuru Kenyatta's sentiments when he stated during an interview with CNN the gay rights were a non-issue in Kenya.
Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget signaled that the Trump administration was scrapping off Barack Obama’s policy of promoting gay rights in Africa.
Speaking to a religious freedom conference in Washington, Mulvaney termed Obama's advocacy a form of “religious persecution.”
“Our US taxpayer dollars are used to discourage Christian values in other democratic countries,” Mulvaney stated in reference to the Obama's administration use of financial leverage to discourage discrimination against gay people in Africa.
[caption caption="Mick Mulvaney"]
[/caption]
“It was stunning to me that my government under a previous administration would go to folks in sub-Saharan Africa and say, ‘We know that you have a law against abortion, but if you enforce that law, you’re not going to get any of our money. We know you have a law against gay marriage, but if you enforce that law, we’re not going to give you any money.’”
The shift in US diplomacy will likely be welcomed by President Kenyatta, who may also be left feeling vindicated after being criticized by the west for his remarks on the LGBT community.
In his address to the Trump administration’s Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, Mulvaney took a stance more closely aligned with President Kenyatta’s than with Obama’s.
“That is a different type of religious persecution that I never expected to see,” Mulvaney added. “I never expected to see that as an American Christian.”
“There are a lot of people in this government who just want to see things done differently,” the White House budget chief said.
After taking office in 2009, Obama lifted President George Bush ban on US funding for NGOs in Africa and other parts of the world that offer counseling on abortion.
[caption caption="Mick Mulvaney"]
[/caption]
President Trump, in turn, has reinstated that ban, which its opponents term “the global gag rule.”US support for gay rights in other countries was made explicit in a 2011 Obama memorandum directing American diplomats and aid officials to “promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons."
In 2016, the Obama administration announced it would bar the US Agency for International Development from awarding contracts to organizations that condition their services on the basis of potential clients’ sexual orientation.
