African NewsLiberia SocietyLiberian News

Amid Rise Of Homosexuality In The Church, A Journalists Fellowship Out To Promote LGBTQ+ Practice In Liberia

(Last Updated On: )

As Advocates Of The Gay Practice Boast Of Making En-roads

By Frank Sainworla, Jr., fsainworla@yahoo.com

Supporters trying to spread same-sex marriage and homosexual practice in Liberia say they are making some progress in their promotion efforts and are now launching a fellowship to train some Liberian Journalists in promoting the practice, which is so far illegal in this West African country.

Articles 14.74, 14.79, and 50.7 of the Liberian Penal Code of 1976 criminalizes same-sex sexual acts. It considers “voluntary sodomy” as a first-degree misdemeanor, with a penalty of up to one-year imprisonment.

Besides the deviant social and moral implications, more medical research continues to point to the grave health ramifications associated with it.

JournalRAGE, a leading online media outlet at the forefront of promoting this practice on the basis of promoting “the rights of sexual and other minorities, has revealed the launch of an investigative reporting fellowship to report on a practice that is widely not embraced here and in most parts of Africa.

“This training aims to build a cadre of journalists in Liberia who will report without any bias, discrimination, and homophobia on sexual and other minorities. The training is further meant to create media advocacies, campaigns and stories that advance the promotion of human rights,” says JournalRAGE.

The stepping up of efforts to popularize the gay practice comes in the wake of a huge controversy in the United Methodist Church in Liberia over the UMC’s Bishop’s failure so far to convene a special ordinary meeting of the Church’s Annual Conference to take a definitive position on the decision by the Methodist General Conference in the United States to embrace the practice.

The US is one of the funders of the LGBTQ reporting fellowship along with the European Union.

At the meeting in the US early in May this year, United Methodist General Conference, the church’s global legislative body, voted to overturn every ban on LGBTQ people. The historic changes include a new definition of marriage as a lifelong covenant between “two people of faith,” rather than solely between a man and a woman, and a repeal of its ban on LGBTQ clergy, although Reverend Jerry Kulah, a delegate from Liberia, was quoted as saying: “We do not believe we know better than the Bible.”

The General Conference also struck down a 52-year-old stance on homosexuality being “incompatible with Christian teaching.” At A Meeting In The US: United Methodist Church Holds Historic Vote in Favour Of LGBTQ Inclusion – News Public Trust

That move has prompted calls in many quarters among Methodists for the UMC to break away from the Methodist General Conference in the US, an action that neighbouring Ivory Coast and other United Methodists in Africa have since taken.

On July 7, 2024, a group of Liberian Methodists held a special service, national day of worship, peace and the sustenance of biblical Christianity in the United Methodist Church in Monrovia’s Sinkor suburb.

Bishop Emeritus Arthur Kulah maintained that they are of the opinion that ‘the Bible is absolute and it is not relevant for this time’ and based on this, the progressives and liberals are denying the Bible in many respects.

“One of these respects is to introduce lot of social and cultural practices that contravene the Christian teaching and living,” he said; adding: “one of such is the same sex marriage.”

Speaking at that service, the UMC’s Bishop Kulah explained that when the topic on same sex marriage was brought on the floor, he was asked to chair the deliberation.

“But, I said to them that we are paradoxical Christians; we are very democratic and yet, we are also conservative and we in Liberia, will in no uncertain terms not accept same sex marriage,” Bishop Kulah asserted. Liberia United Methodist Church: Tussling With Breakaway Or Taking Definitive Position On The Gay Issue – News Public Trust

Returning from a trip abroad recently, officials of JournalRAGE boasted of increased financial and material support to the campaign to popularize the gay practice in Liberia, citing the “empowerment of Journalists” through the pending fellowship as one means it is being done.

“This training aims to build a cadre of journalists in Liberia who will report without any bias, discrimination, and homophobia on sexual and other minorities. The training is further meant to create media advocacies, campaigns and stories that advance the promotion of human rights,” says the JournalRAGE announcement.

The big funders of the advocacy in support of the LGBTQ+s campaign in Liberia are also big funders of the campaign to end the African traditional practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), which they say is harmful to the health of girls who are subjected to it in the traditional Sande Society in Liberia.

JournalRAGE has also been promoting through its platform what it says are concerns in Liberia about the shortage of gay “lubricants”.

Health consequences of homosexuality vis-à-vis health consequences of FGM

But many criticize them for practicing double standards by shying away from also speaking of the huge health consequences of homosexuality. FEATURE: Health dangers of Homosexuality largely concealed – News Public Trust

Besides the deviant social and moral implications, more medical research continues to point to the grave health ramifications associated with it.

Steven B. Wexner, MD in a professional research paper said the gay practice poses grave consequences such as sexually transmitted diseases of the colon, rectum and anus.

Dr. Wexner considers it one of the serious health challenges in the past two decades.

“During the past two decades, an explosive growth in both the prevalence and types of sexually transmitted diseases has occurred. Up to 55 percent of homosexual men with anorectal complaints have gonorrhea; 80 percent of the patients with syphilis are homosexuals. Chlamydia is found in 15 percent of asymptomatic homosexual men, and up to one third of homosexuals have active anorectal herpes simplex virus. In addition, a host of parasites, bacterial, viral, protozoan are all rampant in the homosexual population. Furthermore, the global epidemic of AIDS has produced a plethora of colorectal ramifications.” (http://scholar.google.com/scholar)

The England Medical Journal of 1987 also writes about how the gay practice poses serious risk of anal cancer.

There are also credible reports that as part of the stepped up advocacies, there are plans by benefactors of the pro-LGBTQ+ campaign to increase measures to influence the amendment of Liberian laws that criminalizes the gay practice.

The US and many of its Western partners have increasingly publicly tied their international economic assistance to African and other countries to their embracing of the LGBTQ+ practice.

For US President Joe Biden, it was clearly spelled out as a Policy as contained in his inaugural speech nearly four years ago:

“And to further impair our moral leadership, I’m also issuing a Presidential memo to agencies to reinvigorate our leadership on the LGBTQI issues and do it internationally.

We’ll ensure diplomacy and foreign assistance are working to promote the rights of those individuals included by combating criminalization and protecting the LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers. Finally, to successfully reassert our diplomacy and keep

Americans safe, prosperous, and free, we must restore the health morale of our foreign policy institutions. I want the people who work in this building and our embassies and councils around the world to know I value your expertise and I respect you and I will have your back. This administration is going to empower you to do your jobs, not target or politicize you.”

Some analysts are closely watching to see how the situation will eventually play up in the United Methodist Church and how much the resistance the May 2024 US General Conference decision to redefine marriage not only as joining together of a man and a woman, but rather the joining together of a man and a man or a woman and a woman.

You Might Be Interested In

ArcelorMittal Liberia Supports Nimba University: Presents US$50K Check

News Public Trust

Junior Gov’t Ministers benefit from CSA’s Performance Management Training

News Public Trust

OP-ED: Liberia, The Good Lawyers, And Bad Lawyers

News Public Trust