The
General Overseer of the Charismatic Evangelistic Ministries, Reverend
Steve Mensah has charged the country to take a stance against
homosexuality.
“When was the last time you saw two he-goats
attempting to have sex? Even in the animal kingdom, two males don't have
sex", he told a cheering Christian crowd as they marked Ghana's
Republic Day holiday with a National Day of Fasting and Prayers.
His
call follows a running debate on homosexuality triggered by the
legalisation of same-sex marriages in the USA. The practice is abhorred
in Ghana, a stronghold of religion where Christians are an overwhelming
majority.
Reverend Steve Mensah said the practice should be abhorred to save the country from the spiritual consequences.
He expressed shock at the idea that a wedding in church will have a bride as a man hold flowers before the pulpit.
Ghana's
criminal code is silent on homosexuality but criminalizes sodomy.
Under this country’s law, a “person who has unnatural carnal knowledge
of another person of not less than sixteen years of age with the consent
of that other person commits a misdemeanor,” an offense punishable on
conviction by a maximum three-year prison term.
“Unnatural carnal
knowledge” involves “sexual intercourse with a person in an unnatural
manner” and requires “the least degree of penetration.”
Several
government officials have in the past condemned the practice but have
refrained from calling for the criminalisation of the act.
A
former Attorney-General Martin Amidu has said the practice is culturally
wrong. Nonetheless, he has explained “the law does not follow you to
see what you do, your house is your castle; your room is your castle,
what you do there is no body’s business. It is only when you rape an
adult by way of unnatural carnal knowledge that you become a subject of
prosecution.”
Ms Lauretta Lamptey while the head of the
Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice said “I think we
have religious, moral, traditional and many barriers to that
[homosexuality] and I don’t think we have to simply copy the Western
world on everything because someone says, this is where you should be in
terms of human rights of individuals.”
President John Mahama has also been reported as being against the legalisation of homosexuality in Ghana.
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