General Overseer of the Charismatic Evangelistic Ministries, Rev. Steve Mensah
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 prayers.
His call follows a running debate on homosexuality triggered by the US’ move to legalise same-sex marriages. The practice is abhorred in Ghana, a stronghold of religion where Christians are an overwhelming majority.
Addressing Christians who gathered in Accra to take part in the National Day of Fasting and Prayers, 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.
0 Comments