Although I'm not one of those awful "homosexuality is a Western obsession!" pricks, I find it odd that the western media, liberals soapboxers and politicians find it easy to ignore every other human rights violation beyond these anti-gay laws. How often did you read condemnation of Yoweri Musenevi, for instance, for his numerous crimes against the people; before the anti-homosexuality laws flared up? And of course, the reality of Western countries turning a blind eye to the state enforced homophobia of the GCC due to their "strategic role" as an anti-Iran bulwark.
You're correct that this represents an American or western filter. I see a couple of reasons for this. First, the influence of American conservatives driving these changes in Africa starting with the change of laws in Uganda. Second, that it's so often portrayed in Africa as a backlash to massive changes in policy toward gays in the west.
Coming against several thousand years of no one caring about persecution of gays in other countries, all the way through the beginning of the Obama administration, I think it's a welcome change.
