Nana Adu Mensah (middle) and Most Reverend Daniel Yinkah Sarfo (right)
THE CHIEF of Amakom in Kumasi, Nana Adu Mensah, has warned that any attempt by Parliament to abort the passage of the LGBTQI+ Bill currently before it would be disastrous.
According to him, “Ghanaians are anti-LGBTQI+ by birth and orientation” considering the fact that the three dominant religions in Ghana namely Christianity, Islam and the African Traditional Religion all abhor anything relating to gay and lesbianism.
Nana Adu Mensah was speaking at a public forum organised by Christian Service University College (CSUC) in Kumasi recently on the theme, “Perspectives on LGBTQI+: Theological, Scientific and Legal.”
He said Ghana has “countless taboos” on the LGBT subject, stressing that in Ghanaian tradition “a true human being” who chooses to have sex with an animal or a male sleeping with his counterpart is severely punished and sometimes banished from the community.
“Even those days when we considered our forefathers archaic or unenlightened, they did not practice this evil behaviour so why today? In our society any abnormal behaviour is either corrected or rehabilitated and we don’t protect those things that is why as typical Ghanaians or Africans we strike the cane on a child who is going wayward,” he said.
The traditional leader insisted that LGBTQI+ is “anti-Ghanaian, abominable and a deviation from moral uprightness, which cannot be entertained in our society.”
“So, I stand here on my own behalf and I say it without fear of contradiction that our traditional leaders, our Nananom who are custodians of morality in our society will support the passage of this LGBTQI+ Bill.”
On his part, Most Reverend Daniel Yinkah Sarfo, Retired Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Ghana, who spoke on the theological perspective on LGBTQI+, said the practice is a taboo in Ghana traditionally, culturally, and it is un-Islamic.
He further opined that the practice is also “unholy and abominations of God,” buttressing his points with Leviticus 20:13.
The pastor said that no human being has the authority over morality except God, and wondered how, LGBTQI+ adherents want their sexual orientation to be internationally accepted as humans’ rights.
He cautioned that if the bill is not passed, Ghanaian churches will suffer, adding that proper human sexual orientation in the Bible and Quran will die and Ghanaian family values will be gone and there would be no hope in the near future for the youth.
Most Reverend Yinkah Sarfo added that theological perspective on LGBTQI+ is unnatural, emphasising that “God created animals male and female, and when they are on heat it is male or female.”
On Anglican’s perspective, he said, apart from condemning LGBTQI+, the church would continue to fellowship, worship and do missions with them since they (LGBTQI+ community) are potential souls to be won for Christ.
He assured that Anglican as a Church would gladly open its counselling and support centres for the needed transformation services required by the LGBTQI+ community.
FROM David Afum, Kumasi