Nairobi  - Daniel Chege Gichia, 39, and Charles Ngengi, 40, promised to love and be faithful to each other recently before a London justice of the peace.

The two had only a vague idea how their union would affect their lives back home in Kenya because they are the first married gay couple in the east African country. The initial reaction to their homosexual marriage was overwhelmingly opposed.

The two men have shamed the country, said a ranting caller to a radio station. In letters to the editor and in internet forums people say the men are a discredit to their families, are breaking God's commandments and the good morals of Africa.

In Gathiru, Daniel Chege Gichia's hometown, the family has been put through the wringer. Two of his brothers have been threatened and asked to leave town.

"The father is not the same and the mother is afraid of visitors," a neighbour told the newspaper Daily Nation. Gichia Muchira, an uncle, is unforgiving. "What the boy did has ruined the name of the family forever," he said.

Homosexuality is illegal in Kenya as it is in most African states. Nevertheless, homosexuals and lesbians living in large cities increasingly are considering openly admitting their sexuality. But coming out is tied to problems, including the collapse of relationships with friends and family and the possible loss of jobs and social ostracism.

The case of a Kenyan member of parliament and his son that made headlines in the country a few weeks ago illustrates the situation. When the parliamentarian went to the airport to pick up his son, who was returning to Nairobi after completing his studies, he was shocked to see him wearing make-up and a dress and accompanied by his male lover.

The parliamentarian disowned him on the spot and left, according to media reports. There was no need for him to worry about being seen as a bad, heartless father. It was far more likely that people would show the politician understanding and sympathy.

The Anglican archbishop Eliud Wabukala rejects the idea of legalized homosexual communities in Kenya as godless, un-African and culturally unacceptable.

"We cannot let a legalization in Kenya go through because those who entertain such an idea are not of sound mind," said Abdullahi Abdi of a forum of Muslim leaders in agreement with Wabukala. In places where homosexuals do not feel open hatred, they are pitied as sick or abnormal individuals.

Kenya is not the only African country where homosexuality is illegal. In Uganda parliament is currently debating a bill that would make propagating homosexuality, including the distribution of factual information, punishable by up to seven years in jail. The bill openly encourages the denunciation of gays, lesbians and bisexuals and it would also make punishable even restrained information over what it calls deviant sexual orientation. Some parliamentarians are agitating for the death penalty for homosexuals.

South Africa's constitution explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. But women's groups decry sexual violence against lesbians there who are raped as a way to "reverse their polarity."

And in the west African country of Gambia, President Yahya Jammeh last year made headlines when he asked all homosexuals to leave the country, adding that if they didn't he would "knock their heads off." (dpa)