Ghana’s gay bishops

There is a fundamental characteristic of all organized religions: the exemplification of Lucifer’s personality as liar, deceiver and murderer. To hear the pontifical lunatics of Ghana speak this week, you might have been tempted to ignore the tragedies of history, including the 68 million souls dispatched to silence by Roman frauds. You see, Roman bishops never really seem to mind their shops determinedly domiciled in darkness. With petrodollars and a renewed burst of sexual energy asserting itself in spite of the pretences of the priesthood—for decades in Europe, the only way marriages/society was guaranteed safety was to allow the cassock its fair share of women and brothels– last week’s doublespeak by bishops in Nigeria’s neighbouring country over homosexuality, the reason I have postponed this week’s original engagement to enable the frauds in Nigeria’s River State to sink further into the abyss, should come as no surprise. Bishops are uncharacteristically fertile, both in idea and biological terms, as DNA studies will confirm. But there will be no DNA embarrassment because, as Brother Jero informs us in Wole Soyinka’s Jero series, “no prophet likes to be frightened.”

To be sure, I do not contest the right of the priesthood to defend the LGBTQI agenda: the mother church is a veritable historical outrage, advanced fee fraud encased in Biblical façade. What I contest is the right to use the Bible in validation of that right/choice. Supposedly backing the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill that seeks to criminalize lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, etc, acts in Ghana, members of the Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference (GCBC) desperately but unsuccessfully sought to  create “a distinction between the homosexual as a person and the acts that he may carry out as a homosexual person.”

Homosexual acts, they contended, are “intrinsically disordered and are in no case to be approved of.” Thus: “While the church does not condemn homosexuals for being homosexuals, it condemns the homosexual acts that they perform.” The conclusion, then, is that: “Homosexuals should not be criminalized just for being homosexuals. Neither should they be maltreated nor attacked for being homosexuals. It is neither a sin nor a crime to be a homosexual. It is the acts that they perform that are sinful and should be condemned.” The statement by the bishops came on the heels of the cant by one Cardinal Turkson on the BBC Hard Talk programme, namely “that LGBT, gay people may not be criminalized because they have committed no crime.”

For good measure, the bishops proclaimed as follows: “The draft bill on Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values 2021 currently in Parliament is in the right direction, as it seeks to enact laws against criminal homosexual acts.” They were of course also relying on the statement by Pope Francis, who criticised anti-LGBTQI laws as “unjust,” saying that “God loves all his children just as they are” and that “being homosexual isn’t a crime.” Francis knows no more of the Bible than a robot, which is why he apparently endorses the work of The Human Dignity Trust, an organization working to end anti-gay laws in the 67 jurisdictions where they exist, 11 of which impose the ultimate punishment.

It does not require any sophistication to see that the Ghanaian bishops are engaged in doublespeak. Per the American linguist William Luntz, doublespeak “is language that pretends to communicate but really doesn’t. It is language that makes the bad seem good, the negative appear positive, the unpleasant appear attractive or at least tolerable.” Further: “Doublespeak is language that avoids or shifts responsibility, language that is at variance with its real or purported meaning. It is language that conceals or prevents thought; rather than extending thought, doublespeak limits it.” If, as our bilious bishops say, homosexuality is no sin/crime, how then can “homosexual acts” constitute a crime? And just how do you support a family protection (and therefore, anti-LGBTQI law) law but endorse homosexuality? Are gays supposed to be God’s children?

The Book of Romans specifically prescribes the death sentence for homosexuality. We are in verses 26-27 of chapter 1: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.” And just in case anyone missed the point, verse 32 speaks of the vermin “who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” I place the Bible above any bishop.

If the Ghanaian bishops have become enamoured of the idea of a man being interested in another man’s body, they don’t need to beat about the bush. They are at liberty to place commerce above philosophy. What they don’t have the right to do is to seek to use Biblical authority for their action, which is precisely why I characterize Romanism as pure mercantilism. After all, as Fela said: “Archbishop na miliki, pope na enjoyment, imam na gbaladun.” As a sensible man, I hold that a woman’s body offers all the comfort that a man needs in this world and, in any case, being gay comes with medical challenges that are best avoided.

According to the Vanderbilt University medical centre, gay men continue to be at increased risk for HIV infection and the human papilloma virus (HPV), which can cause anal papilloma and certain types of anal cancers. They abuse substances at higher rates compared to others, have higher rates of depression and anxiety compared to others, and are at risk for sexually transmitted diseases, both curable (gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, pubic lice) and otherwise (HIV, hepatitis A, B, or C, HPV). They are at risk for prostate, testicular and colon cancer, have higher rates of alcohol abuse and dependence, smoke and use tobacco products at much higher rates than others, and are more likely to have body image problems than others.

Those who call themselves gay on this continent are plain frauds. If they are locked in with women, they will turn the world upside down. They cannot be trusted to keep to their profession. I speak as a true prophet. The bishops are besotted with sexual matters only because of the fire that burns within those flowing gowns of theirs, a fire that has kindled illegitimacy for millennia.

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