The Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC) has expressed its support for groups calling for the closure of Lesbianism, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) office recently opened at Tesano in Accra.
The GCBC indicated their position on the issue in a communique dated February 19, 2021 and signed by President of the association Most Reverend Philip Naameh, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Tamale.
In the letter, the association commends those who are in opposition to the activities of the LGBTQI community and condemns all who support the activitites.
Their reason is that homosexuality is an abominable practice.
The communique reads: “We, the Catholic Bishops of Ghana, write to condemn all those who support the practice of homosexuality in Ghana. We also write to support the position of Lawyer Moses Foh-Amoaning and the Coalition who for years has been championing the crusade against homosexuality.”
It continues: “We also commend other individuals who have spoken in condemnation of this practice. We do this because the Roman Catholic Church is opposed to this abominable practice.”
Quoting scriptures like Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Genesis 19:1-28 and Romans 1:26-27 among others to support their position, the GCBC believes that homosexuality is an abominable practice which the Creator has pronounced judgement on and in some instances has punished persons involved in it, even with death.
The Christian body elaborated on the issue of homosexual activities stating that marriage is meant for men and women and sex for the purpose of procreation. Anything beyond this relationship thwarts God’s sexual design.
“In the opening chapters of Genesis, the creation of the sexes by God is presented as having a twofold purpose: men and women are meant to come together in a one-flesh unity of life (Gen 2:24) and to beget children (Gen 1:28).
“Since sexual activity was seen to be ordered to procreation and the continuance of the human race, any form of sexual activity other than heterosexual intercourse is against nature and is a clear violation of right reason,” the GCBC explained.
Nonetheless, the GCBC believes that there is difference between having “homosexual tendency” and engaging in homosexual activities. According to them, having the tendency is not wrong but practicing it is aborminable.
The association said: “The Church makes a distinction between ‘the homosexual condition or tendency’ and ‘individual homosexual actions’. For the Church, the latter is ‘intrinsically disordered’ and is ‘in no case to be approved of.
“In other words, while the Church does not condemn people for being homosexuals or for having the homosexual tendency, it condemns the homosexual acts that homosexuals perform.”
It further stated: “Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil, and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”
“The Church rejects the unfounded and demeaning assumption that the sexual behaviour of homosexual persons is always and totally compulsive and, therefore, they should not be blamed for their homosexual acts.
The GCBC while condemning homosexual activites advocated for some specific rights to be respected—human rights. The specific rights include the right to life, personal liberty and due process of law.
Others are to freedom of thought, expression, religion, organization, and movement.
The rest are to freedom from discrimination on the basis of race, religion, age, language, and sex, basic education, employment and to property.
The Conference stressed that though they advocate for these rights to be respected, “the rights of homosexuals as persons do not include the right of a man to marry a man or of a woman to marry a woman.”
The GCBC therefore calls for three things: President and Parliament’s position on the matter, closure of the LGBTQI office and the Executive and Legislature’s resistence to succumb to pressure to legalize the activitites of the LGBTQI community.
