Ghanaians have been urged not to relent or succumb to pressures of giving up their stance on homosexuality and its attendant matters.
Most Rev. Dr Robert Aboagye Mensah, Past Presiding Bishop, The Methodist Church, Ghana, said Ghanaians should hold onto their faith and beliefs and kick against LGBTQ+.
He was speaking at the National Coalition for Proper Human Sexual Rights and Family Values (NCPHSRV) lecture series organised in Accra on Wednesday.
Most Rev. Dr Mensah, who spoke on the theme: “Theological, Religious and Spiritual Perspective of the LGBTQ+ Phenomenon,” noted that these practices were paramount in other lands before the advent of Christianity,but were strange and unacceptable.
“And, therefore, what they are trying to enforce on other people are more or less trying to force the pre-Christian religious practices on everybody in the name of psychological whatever,” he said.
“But anyone who really understands the view, religious background of homosexuality, will know that this is nothing new,” Most Rev. Dr Mensah said.
As such, he said the country could not allow itself to be wooed by other countries to accept such practices for any benefit.
Most Rev. Dr Mensah commended the NCPHSRFH, an anti-LGBT advocacy group, for organising the lecture,and urged them to continue to do so to enable others speak on the issue.
Mr Moses Foh-Amoaning, Executive Secretary, NCPHSRFV, said the lecture was to respond to the LGBT phenomenon from an intellectual point of view.
“And the context is with the bill currently before Parliament, which it is now going to debate. The whole idea is to galvanise an understanding of the proper response to the whole LGBT issue,” he stated.
“The good news is both culturally as Africans, we are against it. And the Christian religion that we have also received doesn’t permit it. And the Islamic religion also doesn’t approve of it,” Mr Foh-Amoaningadded.
He stressed that the practice was alien, for which reason it should not be permitted, adding that subsequent lectures would tackle other aspects and perspectives of the matter.
“For me, that is the focus of the lecture. And we’re not going to end with a theological perspective, we’re going to look at the legal aspects. We’re also going to look at the health-science implications of it,” Mr Foh-Amoaning said.
“How does homosexual behaviour affect the human being? Is it harmful? Does it promote illnesses and all of that? So those are some of the reasons why we’re running this lecture series,” he added.
BY ABIGAIL ARTHUR
