The bishops of Ghana on December 11 reaffirmed their support of legislation, passed by the nation’s parliament, that would criminalize homosexual acts.
The bishops’ statement follows comments by Cardinal Peter Turkson, the Ghana-born Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, opposing the legislation.
In their five-page statement, the bishops distinguished persons with homosexual inclinations from homosexual acts themselves.
“Thus, homosexuals should not be criminalized just for being homosexuals,” the bishops wrote. “Neither should they be maltreated nor attacked for being homosexuals. It is neither a sin nor a crime to be a homosexual. It is the acts that they perform that are sinful and should be condemned.”