Kenyan president calls gay rights a 'non-issue'

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a Saturday news conference with U.S. President Barack Obama that gay rights is a "non-issue" for his country.

For his part, Obama pushed Kenya to evolve on gay rights, drawing on his own background as an African American in the U.S., The Associated Press reports.

"That's the path whereby freedoms begin to erode and bad things happen," he said. "When a government gets in the habit of treating people differently, those habits can spread."

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Kenyan leaders had asked Obama ahead of his trip to not mention gay rights. In Kenya, sex with someone of the same gender is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.