Kenyan police break up gay wedding

Police in Kenya arrested five men, guests at a gay wedding planned for a beach resort, officials said.

The officers said they saved the lives of the wedding guests, who faced an anti-homosexual mob, The New York Times reported.

The wedding was planned for Kikambala, a beach resort. Police said local residents found out about it and stormed the house that had been rented for the occasion.

Homosexuality is treated as a crime in Kenya with prison sentences as long as 14 years. But prosecutions are unusual.

"It's culture, just culture," said a Kenyan police spokesman, Eric Kiraithe, when asked to explain the intense feelings about homosexuality. "It's what you are taught when you are young and what you hear in church. Homosexuality is unnatural. It's wrong."

Kiraithe said the couple who had been trying to marry were not arrested, although he could not say why. He said the men who were arrested might be tested to determine if they had homosexual relations.