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Homosexuality should not be a crime and people should be helped to better understand the issue, Ghana’s senior cardinal has told the BBC.
Cardinal Peter Turkson’s comments come as Congress is debating a bill that would impose harsher penalties on LGBT people.
His views are at odds with those of Ghana’s Roman Catholic bishops, who say homosexuality is “despicable”.
Last month, Pope Francis suggested the Catholic Church was open to blessing same-sex couples.
However, he added that the church still considers same-sex relationships to be “objectively sinful” and does not approve of same-sex marriage.
In July, Ghanaian parliamentarians supported a bill that would make identifying as LGBT punishable by three years in prison, but it has not yet been passed. People who campaign for LGBT rights can also face up to 10 years in prison.
Homosexual acts are already against the law and punishable by three years in prison.
In an August statement released along with other major Christian organizations in Ghana, Ghana’s bishops also said that Western countries “continue to try to impose unacceptable foreign cultural values on us.” “It should be stopped,” he said. The Catholic Herald reported..
Cardinal Turkson, who is seen as a possible future pope, told the BBC’s HARDtalk program that LGBT people “may not be charged with a crime because they have not committed a crime.”
“It’s time to start educating people to help them understand what this reality is, what this phenomenon is. It takes a lot of effort to get people to… distinguish between what is a crime and what is not a crime. “We need education,” he continued. To tell.
The cardinal noted that in Akan, one of Ghana’s languages, there is an expression that says “a man who acts like a woman and a woman who acts like a man.” This, he argued, showed that homosexuality was not imposed from outside.
“Even if there is cultural expression…it only means that it is not completely foreign to Ghanaian society.”
Nevertheless, Cardinal Turkson said that what has led to current efforts to pass strict anti-gay laws in several African countries is the “reduction of some foreign donations and subsidies in the name of freedom.” “It was an attempt to link him to a specific position under the A name for respecting rights.”
Cardinal Turkson was appointed by Pope John Paul II in 2003, making him the first Ghanaian cardinal in history. He currently serves as Rector of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
