Who is to judge what is right or what is wrong and what is the yardstick for measuring a morally acceptable act? Is it religion or is it society, or is it the laws that we keep amending every now and then to suit our evolving lifestyles?
Tonight, as I pace the corridors of my apartment hoping to find sleep, these thoughts keep caressing my mind as I try to understand NATO’s invasion of Libya and why for the love of God that bloke is kissing the other chap live on national TV.
Oh! It was a talk show encouraging gays to come out of the closet in Africa and more specifically in Ghana.
My immediate reaction being as homophobic as I am was “What kind of nonsense is this and where is Ghana heading to?”
You see, I am your average Ghanaian young man brought up in an old fashioned way and even though I am just 26 with a lot of exposure to the western world, homosexuality was something I frowned upon with every fibre of my being.
I have been accused of being “narrow-minded” in this argument and more often been referred to as “old school”. In one extreme case my college friend referred to me as the “modern day Hitler” in a discussion involving gay rights.
Homosexuality has been the subject of extensive discussion in Ghana over the last few months, with some human rights activists calling for it to be legally recognised. Recently, there was speculation that the British government planned to cut aid to Ghana if Gay Rights was not enforced. How true this is, I have no idea.
For just a brief moment let us put aside our differences whiles we consider a few issues, letting go of what is morally right or wrong or what religion has to say concerning this subject.
Every human being has or must have the right to Freedom of association whether you are in Libya or the most democratic state in the world. It is your God given right to love and to love freely.
You can choose to be a homo or heterosexual lover; it really doesn’t matter provided it makes you happy. But in the act of making you happy have you considered its ramifications on society as we know it and the human race at large.
Yesterday it was gay rights and gay advocacy, today it is gay marriage and gay couples being allowed to adopt. There are even talks of permitting gay couples to have their own babies through stem cell technology or surrogates.
All these are wonderful if you consider how far we have come from the Stone Age, but how are today’s actions influencing our tomorrow. Are our kids going to have to find their identity through a database at some sperm bank or is Kofi one day going to have to attribute his high IQ to a father he has never met but his “mommies” claim to be some professor according to the donor data? Or we will one day wake up to an extinct race, where evolution in civilization took out the sacred act of procreation and turned it into a technological tool riddled with errors?
It is already sad that we are gradually losing the human culture, where our once sacred acts like hugs and kisses have been reduced to a simple click of a button. Have you ever wondered how 50 years from now you are going to explain a hug to your 3 year old son?
But as I near the end of my blog post I begin to wonder how different my views on homosexuality are from the views of the white man some 200 years ago, when slavery was being abolished. I might not be a racist or a modern day Willie Lynch, but I believe infringing on any man’s God given right to how or what to love makes me as evil as Hitler.
True love is the most perfect thing anyone could experience in his/her life and does it really matter how that experience comes. Whether it’s male-on-male relationship or an all female affair, the underlying factor must be love. Who am I to say what homosexuals share is not true love or a gay couple cannot raise the next president. It is tantamount to saying Negros are monkeys and no monkey can ever become president 200 years ago. Today, there is a Negro in the White House and a monkey’s formula (Allotey’s constant) is help keeping astronauts in space.
So I can decide to let my fear of what I do not understand (homosexuality) paralyse my judgement of tomorrow or perhaps, accept the various packaging love presents itself in. For what I have come to realise is civilizations come and go and cultures evolve but what has indeed withstood the test of time and is the core of the human spirit is love, without which we are living but yet extinct.
Tonight, as I pace the corridors of my apartment hoping to find sleep, these thoughts keep caressing my mind as I try to understand NATO’s invasion of Libya and why for the love of God that bloke is kissing the other chap live on national TV.
Oh! It was a talk show encouraging gays to come out of the closet in Africa and more specifically in Ghana.
My immediate reaction being as homophobic as I am was “What kind of nonsense is this and where is Ghana heading to?”
You see, I am your average Ghanaian young man brought up in an old fashioned way and even though I am just 26 with a lot of exposure to the western world, homosexuality was something I frowned upon with every fibre of my being.
I have been accused of being “narrow-minded” in this argument and more often been referred to as “old school”. In one extreme case my college friend referred to me as the “modern day Hitler” in a discussion involving gay rights.
Homosexuality has been the subject of extensive discussion in Ghana over the last few months, with some human rights activists calling for it to be legally recognised. Recently, there was speculation that the British government planned to cut aid to Ghana if Gay Rights was not enforced. How true this is, I have no idea.
For just a brief moment let us put aside our differences whiles we consider a few issues, letting go of what is morally right or wrong or what religion has to say concerning this subject.
Every human being has or must have the right to Freedom of association whether you are in Libya or the most democratic state in the world. It is your God given right to love and to love freely.
You can choose to be a homo or heterosexual lover; it really doesn’t matter provided it makes you happy. But in the act of making you happy have you considered its ramifications on society as we know it and the human race at large.
Yesterday it was gay rights and gay advocacy, today it is gay marriage and gay couples being allowed to adopt. There are even talks of permitting gay couples to have their own babies through stem cell technology or surrogates.
All these are wonderful if you consider how far we have come from the Stone Age, but how are today’s actions influencing our tomorrow. Are our kids going to have to find their identity through a database at some sperm bank or is Kofi one day going to have to attribute his high IQ to a father he has never met but his “mommies” claim to be some professor according to the donor data? Or we will one day wake up to an extinct race, where evolution in civilization took out the sacred act of procreation and turned it into a technological tool riddled with errors?
It is already sad that we are gradually losing the human culture, where our once sacred acts like hugs and kisses have been reduced to a simple click of a button. Have you ever wondered how 50 years from now you are going to explain a hug to your 3 year old son?
But as I near the end of my blog post I begin to wonder how different my views on homosexuality are from the views of the white man some 200 years ago, when slavery was being abolished. I might not be a racist or a modern day Willie Lynch, but I believe infringing on any man’s God given right to how or what to love makes me as evil as Hitler.
True love is the most perfect thing anyone could experience in his/her life and does it really matter how that experience comes. Whether it’s male-on-male relationship or an all female affair, the underlying factor must be love. Who am I to say what homosexuals share is not true love or a gay couple cannot raise the next president. It is tantamount to saying Negros are monkeys and no monkey can ever become president 200 years ago. Today, there is a Negro in the White House and a monkey’s formula (Allotey’s constant) is help keeping astronauts in space.
So I can decide to let my fear of what I do not understand (homosexuality) paralyse my judgement of tomorrow or perhaps, accept the various packaging love presents itself in. For what I have come to realise is civilizations come and go and cultures evolve but what has indeed withstood the test of time and is the core of the human spirit is love, without which we are living but yet extinct.
