-“A new sin against God”-says Pope Francis
By Frank Sainworla, Jr., fsainworla@yahoo.com
The Orator for Liberia’s 168th Independence Day Thanksgiving Service in Barclayville, Grand Kru County in 2015, the Rev. Foday Karpeh warned against what increasingly appears to be a rise in the practice of homosexuality in Liberia today–men having sex with men and women having sex with women.
This is a concern this writer too shares, especially amidst a growing belief in many quarters that this is one of the legacies that has become particularly pronounced for more than a decade now in this country.
In a piece written in my weekly column, FRANKLY SPEAKING published in the local daily, THE NEWS some time ago, I threw out a challenge to pro-gay supporters to (for once) put a spotlight on the very grave health implications of the practice and not shy away from it.
It is hoped many would take cue from the warning given by Rev. Karpeh that if nothing is done to arrest it, homosexuality would destroy the social fabric of the Liberian society.
Rev. Karpeh stressed that the Biblical Eve was made for Adam, “but Eve was not made for Everlyn;” as Adam was not made for John.
Putting the spotlight on the serious health risk associated with the gay practice is all the more important, because it’s reported that many of the country’s youths are now being lured into this act by cash-wielding and power-wielding benefactors.
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.
One issue Pope Francis won’t mince words about is the generally distasteful practice of homosexuality.
But the tiny minority and wealthy and powerful support base of this act continue to make enroads, with the recent US Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing same-sex/gay marriage across the world’s most powerful nation.
With the huge wealth and power that America wields, many in our part of the world fear the domino effects.
One of the reasons the Vatican’s first Pope from the Southern Hemisphere, Francis captures the interest of many (both Catholics and none Catholics) is his humility and frankness on issues in the world today.
Francis sees this new elevation of the abhorrent practice of legalizing gay marriage as “a new sin against God.”
He, like most of the civilized world, doesn’t see marriage as a bond between two persons of the same sex, but rather a wedlock between and male and a female, who were made by God to procreate and establish a family, which Sociology has established to be the nucleus of the society.
Western media report said the Pope characterized gay marriage as “a new sin against God” ahead of his attendance at the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, USA “to celebrate and support the institutions of marriage and the family at this, a critical moment in the history of our civilization.”
The US State Department in its 2012 Human Rights Report on Liberia said:
“The … culture is strongly opposed to homosexuality. … LGBT persons were cautious [in 2012] about revealing their sexual identities, and groups that supported the rights of LGBT persons did so quietly due to fear of retaliation. … There were press and civil society reports of harassment of persons perceived to be LGBT, but none were officially documented. Societal stigma and fear of official reprisal may have prevented victims from reporting violence or discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. In October[,] a law enforcement officer refused to investigate allegations of the beating of a gay man. The police subsequently arrested one gay man. Activists alleged that the [Liberian National Police] … or other law enforcement agencies targeted or harassed those they believe to be LGBT. There were a few civil society groups promoting the rights of LGBT individuals, but they maintained a very low profile due to fear of persecution.”
Well, many in Liberians—both from the two biggest Christian and Muslim faiths- see this gay practice as not only an abomination as the great books, the Bible and Koran say, but it is seen also as an abomination.
“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood [shall be] upon them,” says Leviticus 20:13 in the Holy Bible.
Here in Liberia, the writing is on the wall that homosexuality is widely believed to be gaining grounds today.
And as the minority with the money and power assert themselves, the message of the great health risk it poses must ring even louder, so as to save the next generation.