Pastors, Support President To Assent the Anti- Gay Bill

Acts and behaviours that are considered immoral by the majority of people are not tolerable in human societies. Evil acts including Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) are frowned upon on by many countries of the world including Ghana. So pronounced and widespread is the rejection of homosexuality in Ghana that most institutions and religions including Christian, Islam, traditional and other faiths continue to criticize their practice.

In February 2024, Ghana’s Parliament passed the “Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill to clamp down on the rights of LGBTQ people in the country.  It seeks to punish those who will take part in the sexual acts or promote the rights of gay, lesbian or other non-conventional sexual acts with prison sentences.

However, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo is yet to assent to the Bill to make it functional. He appears to be reluctant in yielding to the demands of the sponsors of the Bill, perhaps considering the sanctions the Bill may introduce against the national economy if it is signed into law.

This is the view expressed by most campaigners against the Bill. Unenthused about the president’s posture, several high profile individuals and organisations have been mounting pressure on him to listen to the voice of the majority of the people who want to have the Bill signed into law.

Bishop Yawasap Ben Israel of United Israel in Christ (IUIC), in a recent press conference in Kumasi stated that homosexuality is against the principles of God and that the Church, particularly the ministers of the gospel must rise up and speak against homosexuality in the country. He wondered how many pastors are in the country where the president is being pressured not to sign the anti-gay bill.

While charging preachers and ministers to wake up and speak, Bishop Ben Israel wondered “Why is it that the president who is trying to do right isn’t given the support with the Bible?”

He urged Nana Akufo Addo to do anything within his power not to kowtow to the powers from the western world. According to him, “the president needs to do whatever he can to make sure same sex is proscribed in the country.

He pointed out that “Two men together and two women together cannot reproduce and it is against God if they attempt to do it. The other thing is that outside, homosexuality, all the sins we do separate us from God and being separated from God makes it easy for us to be oppressed” Bishop Yawasap alluded.

The minister of the gospel, who is the second deputy to Bishop Nathanyel Ben Israel, founder and leader of IUIC, also appealed to the government to stand on its feet and say no to homosexuality regardless of the pressure coming from foreign countries or any amount of money being promised.

“When a president of a nation refuses to kowtow to the pressure from the westerners, they try to instigate the people within the country to rise against the government which often leads to civil war” he said.  He, therefore, urged the president to work decisively on whatever document that needs to be signed to make sure that LGBTQ activities are barred in the country.”

Pastors who are the watchmen over the nations must be bold to speak against sin and evil without fear. Corroborating this assertion, the Christian leader said, “Our people are in sin and all kinds of wicked behavior. We are not always supposed to go to church and feel good all the time. That is not it. The church is supposed to fix or heal people. Just as we visit the hospital for doctors to take the pain out when we are in pain, we have pain in our spirit and minds and it will take real surgery with the Bible to get that pain out.”

In fact, there is no denying the fact that several leaders in the three major faiths groups in the country have been demonstrating genuine concern in supporting and encouraging President Akufo Addo to sign LGBTQ bill into law. In a recent article published in the DAILY GUIDE, Rev. Dr. Duncan Nuakoh noted that in the beginning God created man – Adam and Eve. He did not create man and man but a man and a woman for the reason to reproduce, have dominion over everything he has created and to subdue the earth. God by His wisdom saw it fit for a man to relate happily with his wife in a legal union. This is the genesis of the institution of marriage.

The pastor, therefore, wondered why a group of people in various parts of the world especially in advanced societies want to advocate for homosexuality, a sexual act which is unnatural, immoral, filthy and evil. Indeed, as long as people want to engage in this shameful and perverse act they would find ways to justify it. The fact of the matter is that God never intended that man should have sex with his fellow man or woman with her fellow woman.

The word “homosexuality” is a Greek and Latin hybrid with the first element derived from Greek homos, “same” and the Latin word sexus, “sex”; thus connoting sexual acts and affections between members of the same sex including lesbianism. For example, a man having sexual relations with another man or woman to a woman. Homosexuals are otherwise called gays and lesbians.

In Ghana lesbianism is called Supism, and gayism is called Chiikism. Today these are commonly practiced amongst students, young adults and elderly within the society. Whilst lesbians mostly engage in oral sex, gays normally engage in oral or anal sex and other forms of sex perversion. However, it has to be made clear that God never created the anal passage as a channel for sex. That’s why those who abuse or misuse their anus for sexual activities in the name of money and wealth have several health problems.

By James Quansah