For George Peter Kaluma, there is no single reason why homosexuality is wrong. There are many reasons: moral, spiritual, aesthetic, religious, legal. It is a sin, a perversion. But also a crime. A sinister Western influence, an act against God, against the family and against Africa.
This is how Kaluma sees the world, a Kenyan parliamentarian whose positions would hardly have significance in Spain if it were not for the fact that he appears as a speaker already confirmed in the controversy. With a career that includes the defense of life sentences for gays and lesbians, convinced of the inclination of “LGTBI perverts” to worship the devil himself, Kaluma maintains positions so extreme that, when EL PAÍS asked Red Values Policy—the far-right international entity and defender of the “natural family” that organizes the summit—its response was to mark distances. Of course, without separating Kaluma from the event, in which he continues to appear as a speaker.
“Our Network, obviously, does not know or subscribe to all the opinions of those invited to the summit. Any position that is in tune with the values that affirm the infinite dignity of every human being at all stages of their development, expressed in a peaceful and respectful manner, has our welcome; At the same time, any opinion that deviates from those values cannot have any type of support from us,” says Diego Hernández, director of Communication and Development for Ibero-America at Red Política de Valores. But do they keep Kaluma as speaker? Yes, with the argument that he does not come to Madrid to talk about homosexuality. “We do not silence anyone based on their personal convictions. The VI Transatlantic Summit focuses on freedom and the culture of life; any other issue that deviates from that theme or from our agenda of values should not be addressed there,” explains Hernández.
The summit of discord
Political Values Network is an organization against “radical feminism”, “gender ideology” and above all abortion, which it considers a “murder of innocents”, which is why it defends “fetal heartbeat laws”. These regulations, which are promoted in the United States, prohibit the voluntary interruption of pregnancy from the moment in which cardiac activity can be detected in the embryo, around the sixth week, when many women do not even know that they are pregnant.
Last July, the Senate Board approved the transfer of a room to this entity so that it could hold its annual “summit” there in December. Composed of four members of the PP – absolute majority – and three of the PSOE, the governing body of the Upper House adopted the decision without objections. When EL PAÍS reported, the socialists explained that they had not opposed it due to “lack of knowledge,” and accused the PP of having “deceived” them. Both the PSOE and various left-wing groups, plus PNV and Junts, then demanded that the PP suspend the summit. . The PP imposed its absolute majority to maintain it, since – the Senate Presidency alleged – the entity complied with the established guidelines to benefit from the transfer of a room.
Political Values Network, which on its website presents the Senate as a “collaborating entity” of the summit along with a group of anti-abortion organizations, has as its president the Chilean far-right leader José Antonio Kast, who calls abortion the “right to kill.” “brutal crime” and “murder of children.” The honorary president is Jaime Mayor Oreja, who also sees abortion as a “crime.” Another supporter of the Christian extreme right who is part of the organization’s leadership is the American Brian Brown, president of the , the entity that promotes the World Congress of Families, a global meeting against abortion and in favor of the superiority of the rights of the “ natural family”, that is, the one formed in marriage by a man and a woman. Joining all of them in the leadership of the Political Values Network is Sharon Slater, president of the also American International Family Observatory, a group dedicated to pressuring against an alleged, opposing the right to abortion and defending sexual abstinence before marriage.
Kast, Mayor Oreja, Brown and Slater are both directors of Red Política de Valores and members of the list of confirmed speakers for the summit planned in the Senate, which at the time of writing has 50 members. The rejection of abortion, feminism and education based on the recognition of the equality of different sexual and family options are widespread features among the names already closed by the organization, which will concentrate their presentations on Monday, December 2, although the The summit begins on Sunday with a reception at the Teatro Real in Madrid. Although the harshness of the approaches is the dominant note, there is a profile that stands out from the table. He is the aforementioned George Peter Kaluma, member of the Kenyan Parliament for the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party, whose positions go beyond the limits of what in Spain could be called homophobia. His fixation, which he declares inspired by his Catholic faith, goes much further.
Kaluma’s messages
Kaluma’s account on the social network X, formerly Twitter, bears witness to this fixation. This is a selection of ten messages – there are many more – in the last two years:
1) “It is a crime to be gay, lesbian or sleep with animals in Kenya. […] I will propose to Parliament to increase the sentence to life imprisonment to keep the sons and daughters of Sodom and Gomorrah away from the free people” (January 2023).
2) Homosexual acts are “evil, inhuman,” inappropriate for “human beings,” writes the deputy, who asks “why a sane human being would engage in sodomy, bestiality” or a person “would be gay or lesbian.” (January 2023). The equation between sleeping with people of the same sex and having sex with animals is common in Kaluma.
3) “There is no right to be gay!” he proclaims about homosexuality, a “moral perversion” that can lead to the “extinction of the human species” (March 2023).
4) “There is no space for homosexuality in Kenya,” writes Kaluma, accompanying his statement with a photograph of a smiling young woman dressed in colorful attire with her breasts exposed (May 2023). Kaluma exalts in his account of
5) Homosexuality is “pure evil” (October 2023).
6) The Kenyan State is “obliged” to “criminalize homosexuality in all its forms” (December 2023).
7) “LGBT perverts worship satan! “Show us the place so we can arrest and prosecute the criminals!” he writes, linking his tweet to an article about a “discreet church” that receives faithful members of the LGBT community in Kenya (December 2023).
8) Homosexuality is an “existential threat to humanity” (February 2024).
9) “We MUST prevent homosexual/LGTBQ perversion with its vices of transvestism from being imposed on us by the lost United States and Europe! We will NEVER, NEVER change our culture! […]!” (June 2024).
10) Trump’s recent victory has had euphoric effects on Kaluma. This message is an example: “It is the collapse of Obama’s Homosexuality/LGTBQ empire […]. All homosexuals/LGTBQ perverts should leave Kenya or face prosecution and imprisonment: NO MORE ASYLUM IN THE USA FOR SEXUAL PERSECUTION CLAIMS. GOD BLESS TRUMP” (November 2024).
The deputy, who declares he “hates” homosexuality, does not stop at words. Kaluma Kenya’s treatment of homosexuals, in line with the .
The international federation of LGBTI rights organizations Ilga Mundo a “draft” of the standard presented by Kaluma in February. The text, which had an impact in media such as , and , establishes penalties ranging from a minimum of ten years in prison for consensual homosexual sex to the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”, for example when it takes place “against” a disabled, a mentally ill person, a family member, an elderly person, someone whose consciousness is altered by alcohol or drugs or someone who contracts a terminal illness as a result of sex. The “life sentence,” according to this legal proposal, would not be applied simply for the fact of being gay or lesbian, as Kaluma has defended, but for any conduct that “involves” a minor under 18 years of age “in homosexuality.” definition that is not limited to the practice of sex.
Juniper Muitha, East Africa campaigner at Amnesty International, explains by email that “Kaluma is the driving force behind the family protection bill.” [así se llama la norma] and was head of the delegation [keniana] at the African Interparliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty in Uganda last year.” “There the delegation decided that it would present a similar bill in Kenya,” he says.
This newspaper has tried to obtain Kaluma’s version through various means, including the Parliament of Kenya, the Orange Democratic Movement and the Political Values Network, without success.
