Ghana is not a church

Bishop Titus Awotwe-Pratt’s call for President John Mahama to denounce homosexuality and same-sex marriages, as a way of establishing Ghana’s official stance on this most controversial question before the global community, is grossly misplaced (See “Mahama Must Denounce Same-Sex Marriage – Bishop” MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 8/18/15). It is grossly misplaced because the Methodist Bishop of Accra egregiously conflates the Church and the State, thereby politicizing an issue that has absolutely no relevance in the political arena, other than the imperative need for all civilized democracies to guarantee human equality before the law, irrespective of sexual orientation or faith.

In other words, by his call, Bishop Awotwe-Pratt is acting more like a politician than a religious leader. He has flagrantly crossed a divide that he ought not to be crossing. It is also equally misguided for Bishop Awotwe-Pratt to presume that homosexuality is a new or modern introduction from the West, whose supposed fondness for homosexuality has caused it to use the rejection of homosexuality by most African governments as a pretext to impose economic sanctions on intransigent regimes.

Maybe Bishop Awotwe-Pratt and his Christian denominational associates would do well to study the history of the treatment of LGBT people here in the United States and other Western countries in order to arrive at a more reasonable, constructive and proper understanding of the issue. He may also want to examine the historical relationship between Christian religious fundamentalists and gay culture before making any embarrassing and ill-informed judgments about Western culture. He may also want to ask himself whether, indeed, other than Egypt and Ethiopia, Christianity is really a bona fide African cultural establishment, as he would have his congregation and the rest of the world believe.

The Methodist Bishop of Accra is also grossly mistaken to assume that once African countries develop strong and self-sufficient economies, homosexuality would become a phenomenon of the past, because Africans would then no longer have to rely on or solicit Western economic assistance.

You see, what is quite curious and pathetic about the thought and mindset of many of these prominent African religious leaders is the fact that a remarkable percentage of them received their pastoral training and advanced degrees in Divinity and Theology from the very Western cultures of which they show very little understanding. And then, also, just what “African cultural practices” is Bishop Awotwe-Pratt afraid of being polluted by the West? Is it polygamy or the sort of morbid tribalism and ethnocentrism that has brought entire African communities in places such as Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Congo, Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, among others, to the brink of genocide?

You see, what worries many of us students of African history and culture is the virtually invariable fact that when it comes to the subject of homosexuality, it sadly appears as if our religious leaders are so overwhelmed by their emotions that they facilely allow reason and common sense to take the proverbial back seat. The fact of the matter is that the greatest problem facing our continent presently is not homosexuality or same-sex marriages but rank corruption, gross leadership irresponsibility and an abject lack of foresight.

To be certain, the rampant and riotous incidence of adultery can be aptly envisaged as the most destructive problem of human sexuality in the global African community, and not homosexuality. And the sooner these so-called religious leaders come to terms with this inescapable fact of our sociocultural reality, the better shall our cause and course of human development be the better served.

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
August 19, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net