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11.07.2011 Opinion

Homosexuality debate (2): So why homosexuality?

By Ghanaian Chronicle
Homosexuality debate 2: So why homosexuality?
11.07.2011 LISTEN

As far as I can tell, it is almost exactly a year ago that Nana Oye Lithur, a lawyer, stirred up controversy with her assertion that homosexuality is a preference, and that homosexuals have rights that must be respected.

Almost a year on, the debate has obviously been rekindled, with reports of the growing number of homosexuals in the country. The report has brought in its wake, discussions in the media and condemnation among religious groups. The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana has described it as 'filthy'. A Reverend Minister of the Methodist Church has bemoaned the competition for diapers between children and male homosexuals.

In his article entitled, HOMOSEXUALITY – THE POSITION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, the Most Reverend Joseph Osei-Bonsu, Catholic Bishop of the Konongo-Mampong Diocese, states among other things, as follows:

'To choose someone of the same sex for one's sexual activity is to annul the rich symbolism and meaning, not to mention the goals of God's sexual design. Homosexual activity is not a complementary union able to transmit life…' (DAILY GRAHIC, Monday, June 27, 2011).

Some spirited defences have come from Professor F. T. Sai, an octogenarian medical doctor, who was once the Adviser to former President J. A. Kufuor on reproductive health and HIV-AIDS, and Mr. Kissi Agyebeng (not Agyeman, as appeared in my article last week), a lecturer on Criminal Law.

(See the DAILY GRAPHIC issues of Friday, June 24, 2011; Saturday, June 25, 2011 and Monday, June 27, 2011).

Why do certain men and certain women indulge in homosexual acts? Mr. Kwesi Pratt, Managing Editor of THE INSIGHT, thinks that the cause is economic. That is to say that it is poverty that drives some people to indulge in the act. They do it purely for the money, and, probably, other material benefits that can come their way.

Professor Sai says he does not know. He reportedly told the GRAPHIC: 'My personal position on this practice is that I would not practice it, but who am I to judge someone who does it. Especially as a doctor, I don't know whether there is a biological or psychological basis for it, or simply a person's choice.' (DAILY GRAPHIC-Saturday, June 25, 2011).

In his Friday, June 24, 2011 article in the GRAPHIC, Professor Sai states, 'Though the biological origin of homosexuality is still debated, there is no debate about the fact that the human hormones related to gender, sex, and sexual activity are to be found in both sexes; it is their relative concentrations that make the difference. So what if these differences are in some way accountable for some of the behavioural differences?'

However, Dr. Kofi Nutakor of the 37 Military Hospital has no doubt about why people practice homosexuality. He reportedly told THE GRAPHIC of Monday, June 21, 2010, that is, about a year ago, that homosexuality is 'a mental disorder which can be treated.'

Bishop Osei-Bonsu draws a distinction between two types of homosexuality. He writes in his article already referred to, 'A distinction is made in contemporary science and ethical literature between homosexual tendencies of an occasional or temporary nature, which might exist in an otherwise heterosexual person, and the deeply ingrained and substantially irreversible orientation of a homosexual person.'

Can there be a temporary lapse into homosexuality by persons who are otherwise normally heterosexual? Yes. It has been known that when people of one gender are so confined in one place that they have their freedom of movement restricted, sexual hunger forces some of them to indulge in homosexual acts, even though they may otherwise, be heterosexually inclined by nature.

It has been reported, for example, that homosexuality is practised in prisons where the inmates are kept away from heterosexual sex because of their punitive confinement.

A similar situation exists in boarding houses of educational institutions. The boys practise homosexuality, while the girls indulge in lesbianism.

Since there can be no penetration in the case of the girls, sexual gratification may also be achieved by forms of masturbation in which objects like vibrators, candles and bananas are inserted in the female sexual organ. Of course, masturbation is also practised by males, whether boys or adults.

Those who indulge in homosexuality, masturbation and similar practices are said to go back to heterosexuality as soon as they are out of the spacio-temporal confinement.

I ask again, 'Why do some people, male and female, indulge in homosexuality?' Is it economic, biological, psychological, pathological or societal?

While we are talking about homosexuality, what about bestiality, in which a human being has sex with an animal? What about necrophilia, in which a living human being has a morbid and especially, an erotic attraction to corpses? Or masochism, in which a person derives sexual pleasure by inflicting pain on himself or herself?

The above examples are forms of sexual gratification indulged in or felt by persons. Should all those practices and feelings be glorified on the grounds that they are other peoples' preferences?

Professor Sai's concern is that we may make laws that could be in 'breach of our own constitutional rights, or their limitation to satisfy the ideological positions postulated by religions, or based on cultural dictates.' (See his article in the DAILY GRAPHIC of Friday, June 24, 2011).

He continues in that same article: 'History of many other countries should teach us some lessons about what happens when we try to make laws against morality of individual behaviours which affect no other adult human being.'

Ghana Government, scrap the bestiality law, because if I have sexual intercourse with my farm animal, no human being, adult or child, is affected.

Scrap hard drugs laws, because if I choose to use cocaine, heroin, 'wee' and hashish, for example, in the privacy of my bedroom, no one is hurt. Forget about the anti-tobacco law, because I alone destroy myself, if I become a tobacco addict.

To satisfy Professor Sai, let us forget Christian and Islamic teachings. Let us ignore our own traditional concepts of morality. He is a doctor, and he knows more about human anatomy and physiology than the average lay person does.

Did the Biology and Medicine he learnt at school teach him that it is perfectly normal for two males or two females to have normal sexual relations?

We must be careful not to get caught in a kind of social agnosticism in which we feel that we should not criticise any behaviour because we do not know whether that behaviour is right or wrong, or that the behaviour hurts no one, but the actor himself, if at all. We do not want moral anarchism.

Chicanery, sophistry and clever legal arguments should not lull us into a false belief that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality and that it is a perfect alternative to heterosexuality.

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