In what is becoming a trend for LGBT Kenyans in the diaspora, Ben Gitau has married Steve Damelin at Ann Arbor, in Michigan, USA.
According to the Nation, Gitau, 33, married his American mathematics professor on Saturday.
Soon after the event, the two were seen at the Square’s gardens kissing and fondling in public as friends and family members cheered.
Kararu Ririe, a close friend of the couple and a confessed gay Kenyan residing in California, tweeted shortly after attending the wedding: “This afternoon I had a chance to congratulate my friend, Ben and his husband, Steve on occasion of their marriage. It is a rare thing to see a Kenyan man so courageous! Congratulations.”
According to the paper, Gitau lived in Atlanta, Georgia, before moving to California.
Same-sex marriage is legal in Michigan after a US Supreme Court ruling last June which struck down states’ bans on gay or lesbian marriages between two people “as long as they love each other”.
According to a family member quoted by the Daily Nation on condition of anonymity, Gitau met his ‘fiancé’” in Atlanta, where the latter was a PhD student at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Soon after taking the vows, Gitau posted the following multiple hashtags — some of which are very popular within the gay community in the US — on his Twitter handle and Facebook page: #HappilyMarried #NewlyWed #GayCouple #GayHusbands #2Hubbies #Blessed #JewishHubby #ChristianHubby #Hubby1 #Hubby2 #4Ever1 #InGodsMath #GetItRight #NoWife #ThankYou!”
Damelin is a well-known American scholar and professor of Mathematics.
In 2009, two Kenyan men Daniel Chege Gichia and Charles Ngengi married in London
Gichia was apparently married to a Briton before and after their nuptials he said, “We appeal to the Kenyan public and the media to leave us alone; we have not committed any crime, our marriage is within the UK law…”
The event was highly publicised and the couple is said to have later broken up.
In February 2015, a Kenyan gay couple became the first to publicly marry but fled the country soon after.
Edwin a 37-year-old who worked as a pastor in the Lutheran church, and Isaiah, a 25-year-old labourer allegedly first met on Facebook through a mutual friend. After three years of chatting, they decided to meet.
Around 80 people gathered in the compound of his church in Mtito Andei, and a fellow pastor ‘blessed’ their union.
This is believed to have been the first same-sex wedding in Kenya, or at very least the first to receive a blessing from a religious leader according to gaystarnews.com.