The State is within its right to criminalize acts of homosexuality – Catholic Bishops

The Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference has said that while it is not right to criminalize homosexuals just for being homosexuals, the state is within its right to criminalize the acts of homosexuals in the interest of the nation.

In this connection, the bishops say that 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.
The Catholic Bishops, in a statement, said that the Church recognizes that the state must carry out its duties in the matter of homosexuality.

Concerning homosexual acts, the Catholic bishops said that while the church speaks of them as sins, the state does not use such language.
For the state, whose duty it is to enact laws to govern the citizenry, the language used is that of crime. What, then, is a crime? ‘Crime’ may be defined as an action or omission that constitutes an offense, is usually deemed socially harmful or dangerous, and is punishable by law, the Conference explained.

In light of this definition, they added that homosexual acts, from the point of view of the state, may be criminal in nature.
The statement further explained that the lawmakers may decide that a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman is not in the interest of the nation since, in the long term, it will have an effect on the size of the population of our country if many people do this.

In such a case, it said, the lawmakers will be within their rights to enact laws against that. In such cases, it will be right for the lawmakers to criminalize such homosexual actions by punitive measures.