Population fertility is one of Subsaharan Africa's global advantages. The promotion of alternative lifestyles is a population control strategy. Why is it surprising when an African nation exercised its right to self-determination?
Being gay was dangerous, it could ruin an entire family forever.
There are many ways to push people to do something they are not keen to, draconian laws is one of them.
No one in the country cares what homosexuals do. It's not like married couple already get any benefits from the government. Public display of affection is considered rude: I won't dare to kiss my girlfriend in public. Among a familiar group we may hold hands. Gay or straight the culture of the country forbids sexual expressions. Now why the bill then? My theory is, the opposition party is trying to make the incumbent unpopular. They know the current government/President tends towards liberalism and are taking advantage of it for one of two things: (1) he refuses to assent the bill, in which case his party will face certain defeat in the next election, or (2) assents and faces the wrath of the world. He won't do (2) and very likely will play his cards well to avoid/defer (1).
That is, I consider this the game of politics. Let's see how it plays out.
There's nothing wrong in being gay, I was simply discussing why some countries outlaw it.
We are talking about Ghana where all the options you mention are not available to the majority of the population and even if they were, they wouldn't have the money.
Imagine a gay person being responsible for a significant portion of the income of their family, would they risk jail to express themselves or would they not risk to go to jail to not put their family in troubles?
It's, ça va sans dire, unacceptable for our standards.
Fertility isn't presently a problem in Ghana [1]. If it were, neonatal care is the low-hanging fruit.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ghana#Fertilit...
"Greater Than Expected Fertility Decline in Ghana"
https://dhsprogram.com/publications/publication-fa32-further...
I fell I have have to explain that I'm totally against it, but politically - that's the reason why this law it's being enforced - it will probably play a role in the political propaganda.
social pressure has a strong effect. As an example, quite a number of lawmakers have been caught with homosexual prostitutes, yet they have families. This is because their is a high social cost to not having a wife and children, even if they preferred not to.
Now apply this society wide 200 years ago.
Anti-LGBT+ laws serve a different purpose: useful scapegoats. How is this different from Hungary and Poland?
> Men, after all, know what men like far better than
> women do; women know how women think and feel far
> better than men do. But a man and a woman come
> together as strangers and their natural impulses
> remain at odds throughout their lives, requiring
> constant compromise, suppression of natural desires,
> and an unending effort to learn how to get through
> the intersexual swamp.
Not the first person to do so, either.
> ... men will tend to prefer same-sex relationships because they are simpler and more enjoyable
(emphasis mine)
The world's population who agree with this sentiment is usually called "gays." Also, there's nothing wrong with being gay. Don't be like one of those preachers who get caught in bed.
Have you ever heard the saying that men are from Mars, women are from Venus?
As another example, before colonization, South American societies were well documented as having attitudes considered quite permissive toward a variety of sexual behaviors as compared to the repressive European powers of the day.
Not to be dismissive, but so what? Shitty white Christians exported homophobia along with Jesus. Okay, great. Glad we cleared that up?
Seems like the Ghanaians are now running with it. People love a scapegoat, and Christians love it to be the Gays. The inclusive society of yore is gone. How do we fix it? I don't think that telling the people of Ghana "you're only homophobic because of imperialism!" is going to help fight this bill.
My comment makes the point that these laws are actually more foreign in origin than they appear, and before they were imposed by the brutal process of colonization, the population was doing just fine.
My comment was never intended to describe how to fight the laws, just to flesh out some background missing from the one I replied to. It is your comment that came in with these additional themes out of left field. My guess is that you felt triggered by the word "colonization" and perhaps by being reminded of the atrocities committed in former colonies. Why these would be an irritant to you is beyond my ability to guess, sometimes truth hurts I suppose?
Let me know if you need any addy help navigating other conversations.
1- These are religious traditions that date back to the 1500s. If we can consider chilis a part of Indian national cooking, I think we need to accept that Christianity is a huge part of the national makeup of Ghana, and with it the homophobia present in most denominations.
2- Let's not project on each other. I'm just fine calling colonization a terrible blight and fucked up massive chunks of the world (Antarctica seems fine...), and I can accept that historical/additional context can benefit a discussion but this statement smacked of "blame the West for everything." Of course blame the West, but also blame the people passing this legislation. They don't get a free pass because white people suck. Should the West be trying to fix this, or stay out of it because they should be allowed to run their own government?
Let's rewind a little bit: Who is responsible for this legislation passing in your mind (if multiple parties, please assign what you view as their % of blame). For me it's about 85% to the Parliamentary members sponsoring such legislation, and 15% outside actors with something to gain.
My issue is this: Gay people, my people, are being harmed. Academic discussions about the root causes annoy me when actual blood is being spilled. That's what I'm triggered by, and your comment seemed like one worth responding to instead of the parent (which was gibberish and now flagged)
1) Completely agree, the history is important to understand the threads that continue into the present, but there is no going back.
2) At this point, I think the West should stay out of it in any official capacity, which isn't totally confident statement on my part, but there it is. I also don't think white people suck, and I think focusing on that would be a distraction, the same way it sounds like you do. I intend my criticisms to target abuse of power, which of course happens to fall into the hands of white people fairly often, but it's not the crux in my mind at all. In my original comment I did not mention race for that reason. These kinds of power abuses are ubiquitous wherever people live, and it is absolutely absurd to blame the West or whites as a group for succumbing to the same failures and abusive patterns as people do everywhere.
All of that said... I still think it's important to bring up the lingering influences of colonization, and that an understanding of the forces at play, even going back hundreds of years, is likely crucial to trying to make progress in the present.
> Who is responsible for this legislation passing in your mind
I'm not totally sure, of course from a fundamental view it is the politicians who are enacting the legislation. They are directly responsible for the bill, but I think this is potentially simplistic. Money from outside sources can make a lot of things happen that never would have otherwise, including putting politicians into power and steering their agenda. So if the situation in Ghana can be directly tied to that kind of corruption, I would shift most of the blame to the people who the ultimate driving force behind these bills.
As a fellow gay, I understand your desire to steer the conversation toward more immediate concerns, but I would contest the characterization of the region's history as purely academic. Teasing apart the fractal of influences that create any behavior, including violence toward minorities, can be difficult if not impossible. Spreading more contextual awareness can be a tool to help shift attitudes, at least as far as the limits of a HN comment are concerned.
If you want to be homophobe, it’s fine, but either keep your ideology away from people under 18, or face prison. Same with sponsoring homophobic organizations. Until then nobody should give a crap about your precious religion and how it’s allegedly not a hate-driven crime ring.
In Ghana, child rearing is first of all the responsibility of the parent, which imo is a great vanguard against the on-marching groupthink. There's a variety of ideas and beliefs in the country, government has little to no effect on daily life choice, etc.
That said, the country is heavily traditional and it will take several generations until popular opinion is favorable towards public display of homosexual relationship. At the moment it isn't and can't be forced in any non-imperialist way.