Kenyan author lashes out at anti-gay laws

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP):

AFRICAN LITERARY light Binyavanga Wainaina says he's known he was gay since he was five, though he did not have a homosexual encounter until he was 39.

To celebrate his 43rd birthday, the prize-winning Kenyan has published an online essay telling the world that he is gay. His story contributes to an increasingly fierce debate about gays in Africa and is a protest against laws that seek to further criminalise homosexuality.

It is illegal to have gay sex in most African countries. Gays in many parts of the continent face severe harassment, physical threats and judicial punishment. Kenya has a law banning sodomy. Uganda, a neighbour to the west, recently passed legislation that calls for life in prison for some gay acts.

Wainaina's essay, painful to read, this week announced what he wishes he had told his mother before she died 14 years ago: "I am a homosexual, mum."

In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, he said he came out to help preserve his dignity.

"I came out because ... people have dignity," he said. "All people have dignity. There's nobody who was born without a soul and a spirit. There is nobody who is a beast or an animal, right?

"Every one, we, we homosexuals, are people and we need our oxygen to breathe."