A lesbian church leader lights pink, yellow, and purple candles and passes them around to worshippers as they pray for a court decision that will mean they no longer have to live a lie.
The Cosmopolitan Affirming Church (CAC) is a rare space where Kenya’s LGBT community can escape hostility from society, which is often reflected in hatred and vitriol from religious pulpits.
Dozens of LGBT churchgoers and their allies crammed into a tiny room Sunday to worship ahead of Friday’s potentially historic decision by Kenya’s High Court on whether laws that criminalise homosexuality are unconstitutional.
“When this law is struck down it is going to be a huge kind of liberation for us, like a burden has been taken off our shoulders,” said David Ochara, who helped found the church in 2013.
Kenya’s colonial-era laws echo those in more than half of Africa’s countries, where homosexuality is illegal. Being gay can even lead to the death penalty in Mauritania, Sudan, northern Nigeria and parts of Somalia.
In 2014, a government report to appease parliament’s anti-gay caucus reported some 600 prosecutions over three years.
Homosexuality is taboo in the East African nation and persecution of sexual minorities is rife. Under sections of Kenya’s penal code, gay sex – or “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” – is punishable by up to 14 years in jail.