Top Cardinal from Ghana Condemns Country’s New Anti-LGBTQ+ Law

The Vatican’s former top peace and justice official has condemned laws criminalizing homosexuality, saying greater understanding is needed regarding LGBTQ+ people.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, the former prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development and its predecessor, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, criticized criminalization laws in an interview with the BBC.

His remarks as legislators in his home country of Ghana passed a law strengthening sanctions against LGBTQ+ people. Existing laws already make same-gender relationships illegal, and the new law could criminalize even identifying as LGBTQ+ or advocating for the community’s human rights.

Graphic Online provided an edited transcript of the interview, which details Turkson’s responses to the interviewer’s questions about gender and sexuality, and specifically the Ghanaian legislation:

“My position has simply been this, that LGBT, gay people may not be criminalised because they’ve committed no crime, but neither should this position also become something to be imposed on cultures, which are not yet ready to accept stuff like that. . .

“[M]y position is contrary to what has just been passed, to criminalise anybody, if you are able to identify the crime, LGBT cases are not to be criminalised but neither, and this I think is basically what caused all of this in Ghana, the Ghanaian culture has known of people, with some such tendencies, and I say this because there is an expression in the local Akan language that of mine, of men who act like women, and women who act like men, there is an expression for them, which means that this phenomenon is been known, was known in the culture and in the community and all of that. . .

“[I]t is time to begin education to help people understand what this really, this phenomenon is. If culturally we have expressions for this time of things, it just means that it is not completely alien to the Ghanaian society. Not just alien to the Ghanaian society, now that it is coming out what has to and what has to be the response. I think this drastic form that it has taken in Ghana and probably in Uganda is bringing the perception that the west was imposing this, connecting or linking it with donations and grants and all of time, is kind of politicise the thing in such a way that the reaction has also been political in character.”

With this response, Turkson, who is presently chancellor for the Pontifical Academies of Science, challenged the Ghanaian bishops who have been supportive of criminalization laws.

This summer, the nation’s Catholic bishops joined other Christian leaders in a joint statement against donor nations in the Global North who are allegedly seeking to “impose unacceptable foreign cultural values” on Ghana, namely LGBTQ+ rights. The statement suggested “our tolerance is not unlimited. . .we do not intend to compromise [our] values for LGBTQI+ investors,” adding that the signers “stand together in abhorring the despicable lifestyle practices and behaviors of LGBTQI+.” The statement was prompted by the U.S. ambassador to Ghana cautioning against further criminalization laws, reported Crux.

In in a report on its annual meeting this past month, the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC) commended the nation’s parliament passing the anti-LGBTQ+ law . The Conference called on Ghana’s president to sign it as soon as possible.  Archbishop Philip Naameh, a former head of the GCBC, had previously written a letter to legislators advocating for the law, though he also advocated that “homosexuals…should enjoy the same fundamental rights that all people enjoy,” even while he endorsed and supported conversion therapy, too.

Cardinal Turkson’s remarks have already prompted one positive development. Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin, deputy majority leader of Ghana’s Parliament and a Catholic, praised the cardinal’s words. He stated earlier this week, per Ghana Web:

“Personally, I don’t think that somebody claiming to be a lesbian or gay should go to jail by virtue of that. That is the opinion of the Catholic Church. I’m a Catholic, the second deputy speaker here is also a Catholic, we are Catholics. And the law is very clear and I don’t think that I should hold a contrary view to what the church has said.”

The BBC interview is not the first time Turkson has condemned criminalization laws. As far back as 2015 during the Synod on Family, Turkson told Bondings 2.0 that lesbian and gay people should not be criminalized, and that countries where homosexuality is not accepted need more education. In the same year, Turkson met with representatives of British LGBTQ+ Catholics to discuss decriminalization. In 2014, he criticized a proposed criminalization law in Uganda, though this position was a reversal for his initial support of the “Kill the Gays” bill. However, he simultaneously perpetuates the myth that development aid money to African countries is withheld over LGBTQ+ rights.

—Robert Shine (he/him), New Ways Ministry, December 1, 2023