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Facing widespread criticism over links between the organizers of the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington and one of the sponsors of a draconian anti-gay law pending in Uganda, President Barack Obama used the occasion of the February 4 event to speak out against the African nation’s potential crackdown on its LGBT population.

While his two votes backing an amendment to the US Constitution that defined marriage as “only the union of a man and a woman” and effectively barred any state or federal constitutional claim to marriage for same-sex couples might be enough to cost him gay support, earlier votes cast by Harold Ford in the House may further alienate gay and lesbian voters.

In the coastal town of Mtwapa in Kenya’s Kilifi district, media hysteria and outrage by clerics over a non-existent gay wedding whipped up mob violence that began on February 12, unleashing a house-to-house witch hunt by anti-gay vigilantes, street attacks targeting gay men, the sacking of an AIDS-fighting medical center, and a widening wave of ultra-homophobic national media coverage.

Anti-immigrant sentiment has led Congress over the past few decades to make it more and more difficult for an individual to be granted refugee status in the United States. Legislation has erected new procedural hurdles, and the requirements regarding evidence have been toughened considerably. As a result, people whose lives really are in danger because they are gay sometimes can’t find refuge in this country — ironically, at a time when it seems clear that such asylum is vitally needed.