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JOHANNESBURG — On a recent trip to South Africa, I traveled to Sharpeville, site of the infamous 1960 massacre of 69 Black protesters that became an early catalyst for the anti-apartheid movement. President Cyril Ramaphosa was reminding an audience that the country’s fight for full equality remains incomplete.
I was surprised when Ramaphosa intoned, “If we are to build a society of equals, a South Africa that belongs to all who live in it, we must end the discrimination and intolerance directed at people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
“We must resist the efforts of those who want to take us backwards,” he said, “who express reactionary and hateful views directed at members of the LGBTQI community.” His words were met with cheers from the staunchly pro-African National Congress crowd decked out in green and gold T-shirts and hats. He was preaching to the faithful.
But I couldn’t help thinking how his words might have landed 4,000 miles away in Ghana, where just weeks earlier the parliament had passed a harsh bill to impose strict prison terms for anyone identifying as gay or “promoting” gay rights. Ghana’s president has yet to sign the legislation.
Or in Uganda, which last year passed one of the continent’s strictest anti-gay laws — signed by the president and upheld by the courts — imposing life imprisonment for engaging in gay sex and the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality.”
Or in Kenya, where the parliament is considering the “Family Protection Bill,”........