As Central Kenya grapples with homosexuality, ACK reverend Bernard Mwangi says the church deems it unethical and unbiblical.
The reverend said he struggles to understand how someone can have feelings for another person of the same gender, and that more confusing is the claim made by some that they were “born that way”.
He said it is time for the community to spring into action and establish what is attracting more and more young people to same-sex relationships.
The priority, he said, should be to engage the people already in it in order to understand their perspective.
He also underscored the need to find out how they are oriented into the practice and raised concerns about parents allowing their children to spend too much time online.
“Let’s go back to how they are oriented. These things started in the cities and now they are in the villages,” Rev Bernard Mwangi said.
“There is a general collapse of morality in the society but as a parent, how do you deal with a child who says they are homosexual?”
Moses Mwai, a clinical psychologist, agreed with the reverend, saying it does not help matters to segregate those in same-sex relationships.
Mwai, who works with youths from numerous African countries, including Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Ethiopia, Burundi and Malawi, said homosexuality has become the new norm in most countries but remains a taboo in the country despite its rampancy.
“Go into any random club, especially in Nairobi, and you will find girls having fun with their girlfriends and men with their boyfriends.”
Mwai has worked with men who come to him after catching their boyfriends cheating with women or other men. He says he neither supports it nor condemns it.
He said society needs to establish why homosexuality is on the rise; whether it is because of a breakdown of the family unit, societal issues or the education system.
Some homosexuals say they realised they were gay at a young age, but Mwai believes that something must have happened when they were children to convince them they were gay.
“Did they have a bad father figure? Was the mother terrible? Is it that they were exposed to poor spiritual guidance or has the culture or their environment exposed them to it?” he said.
“If someone says they realised they were gay at age three and they are now 40, what happened when they were that age?
“If someone felt unloved by their parents, we cannot change that, but we can establish where his sexual orientation stemmed from and help channel their feelings of hurt into something positive.”
He said the government’s decision to ban films with LGBTQ content will not improve the situation as such actions tend to rouse curiosity.
The government should instead have explained why it thought LGBTQ is wrong and whether it poses health dangers or its psychological aspects to satisfy Kenyans’ curiosity.
Regina Wambui, a human rights activist, urged parents to be cautious while dealing children who are gay so as not to further stigmatise them.
Wambui called on parents to engage them in dialogue, which she said would help them understand the issue better and what their children are going through.
With technology, Wambui said children are exposed to things that sometimes parents don’t understand, and that parents should seek professional help whenever their children are going through difficult phases.
She said lack of communication is one of the main challenges facing families as parents get too busy looking for money, making it difficult for them to understand what is going through their children’s minds or even monitor what they watch and read.
“Whether we support it or not, we need to understand that it is happening and devise ways of dealing with it, especially at the family level,” Wambui said.
“Whenever our children are going through things we don’t understand, let us normalise seeking professional help in order to offer the right guidance.”
The rights activist further called on medical practitioners to make it possible for homosexuals to seek medical care when they suffer from STDs, saying stigmatising them only exposes others to the disorders.
The constitution, she said, provides for health rights of each Kenyan regardless of their backgrounds or affiliations.
