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Homosexuality: Is the church failing Ghanaians?
Members of the LGBTQI community and supporters at the inauguration of their office at Kwabenya.

Homosexuality: Is the church failing Ghanaians?

“Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” – Romans 1:26-27

This Bible verse came to mind at the news of the opening of an office for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) community about two weeks ago.

I was not only shocked, I was scandalised that the High Commissioner of Australia to Ghana, the Danish Ambassador and some representatives of the European Union cut the ribbons to open that office.

I thought, “Could those diplomats attend an event like that in Kuwait or Bahrain?”

These diplomats might have taken a cue from the newly elected American President, Joe Biden, who has threatened countries that stand in the way of the so-called LGBT rights that define the sexual abomination his administration is trying to impose across the world.

Clearly, the diplomats overstepped their boundaries.

Donald Trump tried over the last four years to roll back those abominable acts without success and sadly, the Democrats are back in power to push the agenda by former American President Barack Obama and former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, that began in 2011.

Barack Obama instructed American government officials to consider how countries treated their gay and lesbian populations in decisions of foreign aid.

Thankfully, at the time, the late former President J.E.A Mills called their bluff. 

Ghanaian laws (Section 104 (1) (b) of the Criminal Code) prohibit unnatural carnal acts — a definition which is widely understood to include homosexuality.

 Law

In a June 17, 2011 interview with the Daily Graphic, the then Director of Public Prosecutions, Ms Gertrude Aikins, indicated that persons caught engaging in homosexual activities could be liable for prosecution.

Responding to calls for the country to enact laws to ban homosexuality, she stated that Section 104 (1) (b) of the Criminal Code made the act a criminal offence.

The law is, however, silent on any form of punishment for lesbianism, that is sexual relationship between two females.

Political leadership closed down the office; however, the Church had been silent until the Catholic Bishops Conference came out in condemnation.

That is not enough; the Church must demand accountability from our political leaders. They must speak out now.

Pulpits

Our pulpits must be revered spaces for speaking truth to power. They must not be silent on a canker that is not only a moral aberration, but which also threatens existence.

Politicians may be quiet, because in one way or another, the West has cowed them into submission and they fear that challenging this moral decadence will cut off aid.

Over the years, politicians have failed to make their position on homosexuality in Ghana clear enough to ward off interests in the issue, making it a rod for Western blackmail. But must the Church be quiet and accept this?

Must we?

On July 18, 2011, the Christian community in Ghana called on all to confront the canker of homosexuality in the country.

“Ghanaians, for that matter Africans, cherish our rich and strong values on issues such as homosexuality and we must not allow anyone or group of people to impose what is acceptable in their culture on us in the name of human rights,” Rev. Dr Fred Deegbe, the then Secretary of the Christian Council, said.

It appeared that was the last strong front of the Christian community against the advancing efforts of gay and lesbian right activists.

We are relaxed because the leadership of the Christian community fear incurring the wrath of the US Embassy and other Western embassies who will tag them homophobic. The time to speak out is now.

Claim

Some claim Jesus never said anything about homosexuality and, therefore, is neutral on the topic. That cannot be true.

Jesus was unequivocal in saying that to understand marriage and the sexual union, we must go back to the beginning and see how God created humanity and to what end (See Matthew 19 and Mark 10).

Jesus holds up the creation story in Genesis not merely as a lesson, but as authoritative direction — reminding us that God created each of us male and female, each for the other.

The sexual union, created and ordained, is for husband and wife to come together in physical union, one flesh.

Therefore, we must not allow the so-called modernity and gay and lesbian lobby groups to throw dust into our eyes and destroy the future of our young people.

If the State fails to keep that office closed, or fails to take steps to enact laws to curb it, it will show only one thing – that it is complicit in endorsing the assault on our culture, laws and religion.

A word to the wise is not just enough, it is also timely to save generations to come.

 

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