LGBTQ: Ancient and modern

Humans are constant in their behaviour.

Since creation, nothing has changed the Adamic nature from its predilection for the sublime and the gross; for the lofty and the mundane; for the holy and the profane. Man is a contrariety of impulses. 

Humanity has exercised its freedom of choice in behaviours that encompass the gamut of feelings and idiosyncrasies as diverse as humanity itself.

The global engagement with the so-called rights of people to be Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual, Transgender or Queer (LGBTQ) might appear current and unheard of for most people, whereas, in fact, this bizarre choice of lifestyle has been with humanity since the creation of the world. It is ancient.

The cardinal truth about opposition to LGTBQ proceeds from its fundamental negation of the laws of sexuality by which God populated the world.

From the Bible, we know that Adam (man) was first created, then Eve (woman) came out of him, for her to be a helper and companion to Adam, and, by their union (love), procreate and fill the earth (Gen 2:20-23). The Quran puts it this way:

O humanity! Be mindful of your Lord Who created you from a single soul, and from it created its mate, and through both He spread countless men and women. And be mindful of Allah-in whose Name you appeal to one another – and honour family ties. Surely Allah is ever Watchful over you (Surah Al-Nisa 4:1).

Proceeding from the creation of man and woman, God established sexual laws for the governance of humanity. A thorough set of laws is found in the Leviticus 18: 22-23. The command goes forth: Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable. 

Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.

The laws on sex provide the jurisprudential standards against which to judge LGBTQ. In both the Bible and the Quran, the recorded episode of the men of Sodom, desiring to have sexual relations with angels, who visited Lot, and who appeared as normal men to them, illustrates how native to humanity are sexual impulses that could be perverse and abnormal.

At Gen 19:5-8, we read:   They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."

Prophet Mohammed is quoted in these words: May Allah curse the one who does the action of the people of Lot, may Allah curse the one who does the action of the people of Lot (Musnad Ahmad: 1878).

Outcome

We know the outcome of the sexual perversities of Sodom and Gomorrah: the towns were destroyed by God (Gen 19:24). From the word Sodom we have the verb “to sodomise”: meaning, to have anal sex with man or animal.

Remarkably, early Islamic adherents were tolerant of homosexuality, and it was a normal, social behaviour that did not attract the sanctions it does today. In the Middle East, rulers kept male harems of youth for their use (paederasty).

There is the story of the Christian martyr, Pelagius of Córdoba, in Spain, who was executed by Andalusian ruler, Abd al-Rahman III, because the boy refused his advances.

In ancient China, historians record that homosexuality was common among dynasties that ruled from 2070 BC to 1912. One such dominant dynasty was the Han dynasty: 202 to 220.

Chinese historian, Han Fei, described how Emperor Ai of Han shared a bed with his male lover, Dong Xian, a minor court official.

He slept on his sleeve and, not wanting to disturb the sleep of his lover, the Emperor cut off the sleeve. It is said that Chinese euphemism for homosexuality is ‘cut sleeve’.

In Rome, before the introduction of Christianity in 390 AD, homosexuality was freely indulged in. Emperor Hadrian (117–138 AD) is famed for having a male lover, Antinous, a Greek youth he met during one of his travels. Antinous, 19, drowned while sailing with the emperor on the River Nile.

Opinion

The opinion has been expressed in recent times by a prominent Italian history professor, a Roman Catholic, Roberto De Mattei, that the Roman Empire fell in 410 AD due to its being a “contagion of homosexuality and effeminacy “.

Today, as we speak, the dynamics of LGBTQ have changed profoundly.

In the US, where most States were anti-LGBTQ, it took the phenomenal decision of 5 to 4 on June 26, 2015, by the US Supreme Court, in Obergefell v. Hodges, to sanction same-sex marriage as permissible and legitimate, thereby overthrowing the conservative ideals of Christian morality.

In justification of same-sex marriage, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who delivered this historic decision, stated in part:

It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfilment for themselves.

Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilisation’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

Predictably, the dissenting judgement of Chief Justice Roberts captured the moral abhorrence of same-sex marriages:

The court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the states and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs,” he wrote. “Just who do we think we are?”

Today, many nations have followed the US, and have given legislative blessings to same-sex marriage. Some of the nations are the UK, Canada, France, Mexico, Chile, Brazil. Going beyond these, school syllabi have been changed to reflect the so-called rights of LGBTQs, and a new, pervasive sexual freedom is raging over Europe. Another element has been added: transgender.

That is, you could change your sex by surgical operation, for a man to be a woman, a woman to be a man!!!

What must be Ghana’s stance?

In our 1992 Constitution, we declared at the outset: “In the name of the Almighty God We the People of Ghana………do hereby adopt, enact and give to ourselves this constitution”.

The God of Ghana says sexual sins defile a nation, and such nations shall be destroyed (Gen 18:24-28).

Between the voice of man (the world), and the voice of God, whom should we listen to? Ghana is committed to God, and we must remain faithful to Him in fearless defence of the integrity of marriage between man and woman; the integrity of social cohesion and sanity; and, above all, the integrity of a nation. 

The writer is a lawyer.
E-mail: akwesihu@yahoo.com