Uganda's president has said gay people should not be killed or persecuted, as MPs continue to consider a controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
In his first public comments on the bill for some time, President Yoweri Museveni also said that homosexuality should not be promoted.
The original version of the bill stipulated the death penalty for some homosexual acts but this has reportedly been dropped.
Homosexual acts are illegal in Uganda.
The president said: "If there are some homosexuals, we shall not kill or persecute them but there should be no promotion of homosexuality.
"We cannot accept promotion of homosexuality as if it is a good thing."
Some African opponents of homosexuality have said it was introduced to the continent by European colonisers.
However, Mr Museveni said he knew of traditional kings and chiefs who practiced homosexuality, but that they did it in secret and did not promote it.
He said he had told the US ambassador to Kampala that all forms of sex were kept private in Africa, unlike in Western societies.
"I told him that I have been married to my wife for 39 years, but I have never kissed her in public and in my house before the children," the New Vision newspaper quoted him as saying at the same church ceremony.
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