In November 2023, Cardinal Peter Turkson got tackled by his Ghanaian kith and kin for sounding, in the view of his critics, \u2018liberal\u2019 on the taboo LGBTQIA+ topic when he spoke to the BBC’s HARDtalk programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He had told the international media house that homosexuality should not be a criminal offence and people should be helped to understand the issue better \u2013 a view completely at odds with his country\u2019s lawmakers, some of whom are sponsoring a private member’s bill to have all sexuality on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum explicitly circumscribed and criminalised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turkson, the first-ever Ghanaian cardinal appointed in 2003 by Pope John Paul II, is now chancellor of the Pontifical Academies of Sciences and is seen as likely to become the first-ever black Pope in the history of the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his HARDtalk interview, Cardinal Turkson said: “LGBT people may not be criminalised because they’ve committed no crime”, adding: “It’s time to begin education, to help people understand what this reality, this phenomenon is\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe need a lot of education to get people to… make a distinction between what is [a] crime and what is not [a] crime”, explained Cardinal Turkson, who referred to the fact that in one of Ghana’s languages, Akan, there is an expression known as ‘Kojo Besia’, which refers to “men who act like women and women who act like men”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To him, \u2018Kojo Besia\u2019 was indicative that homosexuality was not an imposition from the outside. “If culturally we had expressions [like that] … it just means that it’s not completely alien to the Ghanaian society.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nevertheless, Cardinal Turkson said he thought that what had led to the current efforts to pass strict anti-gay measures in several African countries were “attempts to link some foreign donations and grants to certain positions… in the name of freedom, in the name of respect for rights”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Neither should this position also become… something to be imposed on cultures which are not yet ready to accept stuff like that”, he cautioned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Big Debate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Is Cardinal Turkson right in saying merely having local expressions that refer to effeminate males and masculine women (Kojo Besia) is proof enough that homosexuality is not alien to African culture? That is an issue that has been widely debated in cultural and academic circles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just like in Ghana, anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiments hold sway in many African countries, primarily due to the conservative cultural and religious values of the continent and some African leaders, past and present, have been at the forefront of the continent\u2019s anti-gay movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGays are worse than pigs and dogs,\u201d Zimbabwe\u2019s Robert Mugabe is on record to have said while alive. He is in good company with Uganda\u2019s Yoweri Museveni, who also, at a point in time, described the anti-LGBTQIA+ community as \u201cdisgusting\u201d people; and Mr Yahyah Jammeh of The Gambia, while president, also said gays were \u201cmosquitoes\u201d and \u201cvermin\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They are homophobes per liberal judgement, perhaps, but bastions of African values \u2013 puritans in the eyes of the conservative African. They hold the view that homosexuality is un-African.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A man fellating another couldn\u2019t be more grotesque \u2013 culturally, morally, and, in their view, naturally. It is a taboo; insufferably sepulchral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even worse, to the conservatives, is the idea of a man penetrating a fellow man\u2019s anus with his phallus. Abominably un-African, they would condemn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such \u2018abnormal debauchery\u2019 and \u2018unnatural sexual craving\u2019 could only be a post-colonial relic. It must be a Whiteman\u2019s contagion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Africa\u2019s palpable anti-LGBTQIA+ environment is reinforced by stern anti-gay laws. Uganda and Nigeria passed separate anti-gay laws about six years ago, which prescribe harsh custodial sentences for homosexuals and their collaborators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The LGBTQIA+ community in Africa are target of instant (in)justice \u2013 depending on where you stand. They are, either stoned to death or burnt alive by anti-LGBT+ vigilantes with beastly abandon. In a society struggling to find a dialectical balance between its ancient values and the modern-day Afro-acquiesced invasion of Western culture, homosexuality would be a hard sell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is simply irreconcilable with what is African, the conservatives and moralists will insist. Anything \u201cun-African\u201d must be intolerable to Africans, and must be purged by \u2018any means necessary\u2019 \u2013 even by lynching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Africa\u2019s LGBTQIA+ community is fighting back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWho defines what is un-African?\u201d they ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They are falling on a mountain of \u2018alleged\u2019 ancient traditional practices documented by mostly white-Western anthropologists, to counter what, in their view, is a misinformed perception about homosexuality being an imported contagion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A report titled \u2018Expanded Criminalisation of Homosexuality in Uganda: A Flawed Narrative\/Empirical Evidence and Strategic Alternatives from an African Perspective\u2019, prepared by Uganda\u2019s sexual minorities, claims anthropologists Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe (An American gay activist who helped found the Lambda Alliance at the University of Montana, the state\u2019s first LGBT organisation in 1975), have, in their view, clearly shown that homosexuality has been a \u201cconsistent and logical feature of African societies and belief systems,\u201d throughout the continent\u2019s history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other anthropologists like Thabo Msibi of the University of Kwazulu-Natal, Marc Epprecht, E. Evans-Pritchard and Deborah P. Amory, have reached similar conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To begin with, it is worth noting that the first \u2018alleged\u2019 documentation of homosexuality (as understood in the modern-day sense) has been traced to Egypt (Africa) in 2400 BCE. Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, two male \u201coverseers and manicurists of the Palace of the King\u201d, according to the dossier, whether contrived, misinterpreted or genuine, were depicted in a nose-kissing position in Egyptian art. However, not all anthropologists agree the two were homosexuals. Some argue they could have been twin brothers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further, among the alleged documented evidence is a 2000-year-old \u201cexplicit\u201d San Bushman painting, which depicts men having sex with each other through the anus. To the apologists who insist homosexuality has never, historically and culturally, been alien to Africa, such archaeological evidence cannot be wished away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Certainly, they would push forth: the Bushman of old would not have found it necessary to document such a practice through paintings if nothing of the sort was happening at the time. Or would they? But could both the Egyptian and the Bushman artworks be hoaxes? After all, it is not at all uncommon in the world of archaeology to fake such evidence. History is replete with such examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Furthermore, the document adduces other cultural and spiritual evidence to prove the African-ness of homosexuality. It says the Nzinga \u2013 a warrior woman in the Ndongo Kingdom of the Mbundu \u2013 who ruled as \u2018\u2018King\u201d rather than \u201cQueen\u201d, was documented by a Dutch military attach\u00e9 in the late 1640s, dressed as a man surrounded in her harem by young men dressed as women she called \u201cwives\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Could that be a clear manifestation of early transgenderism and transvestitism in Africa? Or are purely traditional African rituals such as that \u2013 if, indeed, anything of the sort ever happened \u2013 being stretched beyond their limits to clothe what, perhaps, could be a modern-day construct with ex-post facto historical and cultural circumstance to rationalise what may not even have been? Or is the evidence too substantial to ignore?<\/p>\n\n\n\n E. Evans-Pritchard is also said to have recorded that the Azande or Zande of Northern Congo, practised an institutionalised traditional custom, which allowed older warriors to marry younger men who were between 12 and 20 years old. They served them as \u201cwives\u201d. The Warriors, according to the anthropologists, paid a \u201cbride price\u201d to the family of the young men they married, just as happens in heterosexual marriage contracts within the same traditional setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201cboy-wives\u201d served their \u201cwarrior husbands\u201d sexually and domestically. Once married, the warrior-husband referred to his boy-wife\u2019s parents as \u201cgbiore\u201d (father-in-law) and \u201cnegbiore\u201d (mother-in-law).<\/p>\n\n\n\n A precursor of gay marriage in Africa? Or are the continent\u2019s sexual minorities clutching at straw to justify their sexual \u2018abnormality\u2019? Or did this alleged practice \u2013 if proven \u2013 wield spiritual and mystical essence rather than a sexual one? And should mystical rituals and cultural practices bearing semblances of homosexuality necessarily be deemed homosexual in nature in both the historical and modern-day contexts of the construct?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eighteenth-century anthropologist, Father J-B. Labat is thought to have documented the Ganga-Ya-Chibanda, the presiding priest of the Giagues \u2013 a group within the Congo Kingdom, as routinely cross-dressing and being referred to as \u201cgrandmother\u201d. Is this another anthropological evidence of primordial transvestitism in Africa?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And there are a plethora of them. The \u201cChibadi\u201d, found in Southern Africa, for instance, were thought to have practised transvestitism. They were documented by a Jesuit in 1606 to have expressed aversion to, and embarrassment at, being called men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, effeminate transvestites in 17th century Angola were documented by Portuguese priests Gaspar Azevereduc and Antonius Sequerius, to have been married by men. Such marriages were purportedly \u201chonoured and even prized\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, men who dressed and behaved like women in northwest Kenya and Uganda\u2019s Iteso society had sexual relations with other men. The document also claims same-sex practices were also recorded among the Banyoro and Langi while in pre-colonial Benin, homosexuality, was apparently seen as a natural phase for growing boys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Nandi and Kisii of Kenya; and parts of Eastern Africa, are also recorded to have practised female-to-female marriages while among the Cape Bantus, lesbianism was ascribed to women who were in the process of becoming chief diviners known as \u2018isanuses\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Generally, in Southern Africa, many female diviners were thought to have been either homosexual or asexual because the divine healer is thought to be closer to women and, by extension, had spiritual proximity to nature\u2019s fundamental source of sustenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, the rain queen of the Lobedu Kingdom in South Africa, Modjadji, is said to have taken up to 15 young wives as she saw fit. Primordial lesbianism in African history, it may seem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anthropologists also claim gay sex amongst Bantu-speaking Pouhain farmers (Bene, Bulu, Fang, Jaunde, Mokuk, Mwele, Ntum and Pangwe), in present-day Gabon and Cameroon, was seen as mystical medicine for transmitting wealth. It was known as \u201cbian nk\u00fb ma\u201d. Similarly, among the Nilotico Lango of Uganda, men who assumed \u201calternative gender status\u201d, known traditionally as \u201cmukodo\u201d, could marry other men and be treated as women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other Ugandan tribes such as the Bahima, Banyoro and Buganda, have also been documented to practise same-sex relationships. Buganda monarch King Mwanga II, who was known as the Kabaka, is documented by anthropologists to have had sex with his male subjects. Mwanga, apparently fought Christian missionaries who attempted to get him to stop sodomising his male subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He is said to have even executed Christians who dared question his sexuality. Could same-sex activities or semblances of it have been mere channels for reaching out to the divine realm? Or were they meant for pleasure, for their mere sake? Could they have been part of necessary spiritual rituals that may have inured to the benefit of communal dwelling at the time, if these documented claims, indeed, were real and true events? Or did the warriors, priests, and priestesses at the time abuse their socio-cultural standing and privileges to pursue a deviant sexual desire using spiritism and mysticism as cover-ups for their debauchery?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Igbo of Nigeria, Nuer of Sudan and the Kuria of Tanzania also had homosexual practices in their cultures per the document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Murray and Roscoe documented in their book \u2018Boy-Wives and Female-Husbands\u2019 that the Bafia people in Cameroon saw homosexuality among young men as a normal resort to avoiding impregnating young girls during puberty. They found that boys had sex with boys as a precautionary measure for fear of impregnating girls before full maturity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sexual affection between girls was also common in Lesotho.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LGBT+ groups in Africa and the world are relying on these alleged anthropological facts to fight the strong anti-gay culture in Africa. To them, the heap of evidence eliminates the perception that Westerners influenced Africa\u2019s gay culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As far as they are concerned, homosexuality is intricately interwoven into many African traditions and customs and, therefore, cannot be labelled as un-African. It predates the coming of the Whiteman, as far as they are concerned, so, logically, in their view, the West cannot be deemed to have influenced a culture that pervaded before its forays into the continent. And besides, the West did not choose Africa\u2019s traditions for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the big question is: whether we could apply, retrospectively, the modern-day concept and construct of homosexuality to what pertained in these African societies in ancient times, if, indeed, these practices occurred as documented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anthropologist Marc Epprecht, in his book \u2018Heterosexual Africa?\u2019 cites evidence to suggest that sexuality, in terms of how we think about it today as being an identity, did not exist in pre-colonial classifications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He says: \u201cHomosexuality didn\u2019t function as the antithesis to heterosexuality; rather sexuality was part of an innate spectrum. Because of this, soldiers bedding and even living with male companions were simply considered part of a natural sexual occurrence in certain areas, notably in Southern Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will it, therefore, be fair to argue, based on the alleged bunch of anthropological evidence that homosexuality, in all its forms, is not un-African? If so, not necessarily saying it is, then why is it that the entire continent has such avid aversion to it? Should it not rather be easier for a continent with such a homosexual history and culture to accept the practice easily than fight it? Or did the present generation of Africans lose touch with the continent\u2019s homosexual history millennia or centuries ago? Or is the bundle of evidence trumped up? Are Africa\u2019s sexual minorities clutching at straw to justify deviant sexual behaviour? Or is Africa simply running away from its homosexual past?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Objectively Sexual Normality v. Subjective Abnormality <\/p>\n\n\n\n I detest the idea of one man fellating another. I could tolerate two women fondling each other\u2019s nether parts or bosoms. The man in me wouldn\u2019t find that nauseating in the least. But stretching such fantasy beyond fantasy gives me a bit of a headache. I have no problem with two consenting adults of the same sex choosing to derive sexual pleasure from each other through whatever means. After all, they may \u2013 obversely \u2013 consider those of us who say we are \u201cstraight\u201d as \u201cabnormal\u201d. One\u2019s sexual orientation, therefore, is either \u201cnormal\u201d or \u201cabnormal\u201d depending on where you stand. So, despite my disgust for gay sex, I can\u2019t say I\u2019m any more normal than a gay person. Nor can I say a gay person is any more abnormal than me. So, is there normal or abnormal sexual orientation at the end of the day? Is it what society defines it to be? And if so, must it be? Or is it what makes people who consider themselves \u201cnormal\u201d \u2013 whatever that is \u2013 feel comfortable about? Or is it what makes anybody at all \u2013 whether normal or abnormal \u2013 get the \u201cnormal\u201d tinge in their bone? Will heterosexual intercourse be seen as normal were human societies largely homosexual? And could humankind have perpetuated itself through homosexuality? Or must the end purpose, if any, of both, justify their normality or otherwise? Or better still, do, and must, social behaviours in and of themselves, exude normality or otherwise, independent of the phalanx of values that swirl around and shape them; in whatever society they are enmeshed? Or can two opposing aspects of the same thing be right at the same time, within the same society, irrespective of what social values pervade or swing in favour of one rather than the other? Can what is considered \u201cright\u201d in the sight of the majority in any society be wrong? And can what is \u201cwrong\u201d in the same society be right? Heterosexuals see their sexual orientation or preference as normal. I have heard some homosexuals argue that they were born that way, thus, seeming to ascribe normality to their orientation. The world is prominently heterosexual. Homosexuals are considered a minority \u2013 or are they? Perhaps, there are more homosexuals in the world than we suspect. Maybe they are still in the closet because they fear what society will say about them once they come out. Maybe they are faking heterosexuality when, in fact, they are homosexuals. Or maybe, the spectrum is more fluid than we think. It is an undeniable fact that heterosexuality, besides its pleasure-giving purpose, also has a procreative function. Homosexuality, on the other hand, naturally, serves no procreative purpose. Procreation is important for human perpetuity. Save through reproductive technology, homosexuals can\u2019t satisfy that purpose. But even with that, homosexuals must, grudgingly, I imagine, bend over to borrow a limb from heterosexuals. A lesbian couple can\u2019t conceive without a sperm donor. Nor can transvestites or shemales or gay couples. Is it then fair to say the tenser one must stretch technology for assistance in replicating a process that effortlessly, and \u201cnaturally\u201d happens in nature \u2013 as in the case of procreation through heterosexual copulation by both humans and animals \u2013 the more abnormally inclined that process is? Is homosexuality, by this argument, therefore, abnormal? Or are homosexuals a perfectly \u201cnormal\u201d minority group in an imperfectly \u201cabnormal\u201d society of heterosexuals? Or is humankind experiencing the world upside down? Or has humankind normalised abnormality and simultaneously abnormalised normality? Or did heterosexual orientation gain prevalence over homosexuality through a Darwinian evolutionary process which humankind is yet to come to terms with? And if so, must the fittest survivor then be seen as the normal candidate? Or, perhaps, have we humans got it all wrong by pigeon-holing social behaviour as either right or wrong, when, in reality, both shades could comfortably exist side-by-side in a smudgy continuum without all the socio-religious fuss? Heterosexuals could be the matter of the sexual universe or multiverse \u2013 if it exists as predicted by M Theory \u2013 while homosexuals could be the Universe\u2019s anti-matter. Both have their separate roles to play while complementing each other at the same time to ensure some unknown balance. Heterosexuals may exist to perpetuate humankind on earth. That could be their sole purpose. Homosexuals could just be one of Nature\u2019s numerous ways of controlling heterosexuals\u2019 progeny. Imagine if all humans desired progenies. Perhaps, the earth can\u2019t bear that burden. Similarly, I can\u2019t imagine the world being full of homosexuals. Humankind would have gone extinct before it even existed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In November 2023, Cardinal Peter Turkson got tackled by his Ghanaian kith and kin for sounding, in the view of his critics, \u2018liberal\u2019 on the taboo LGBTQIA+ topic when he spoke to the BBC’s HARDtalk programme. He had told the international media house that homosexuality should not be a criminal offence and people should be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","video":"","gallery":"","source_name":"CISA Analyst","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_review":[],"enable_review":"0","type":"percentage","name":"","summary":"","brand":"","sku":"","good":[{"good_text":""}],"bad":[{"bad_text":""}],"score_override":"","override_value":"","rating":[{"rating_text":"","rating_number":"10"}],"price":[{"shop":"","price":"","link":"","icon":""}],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"enable_post_split":"0","post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[183],"tags":[194],"class_list":["post-1937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysts","tag-2nd-edition"],"yoast_head":"\n