> when the society fails to get religious extremists
I have a difficult time disentangling chicken and egg. Would a society in Ghana's state wind up with similarly-hateful policies absent religion? That is, does the situation create the calling to which religion happened to be proximate this time, but, in its absence, some other organized majority (e.g. nationalists) would rise? (More practically: is targeting the religion the most efficient way to solve the problem.)
The irony of all this being such policies promot the situation. Such laws encourage brain drain. They de facto bar many foreign firms from investing or even letting their employees visit. They also add friction to every foreign aid talk.
Not “absent religion”, but with a non-homophobic religion. I’d you look at the history of Catholic Church (I like this particular example, because I know it much better than any other religion), you’ll see that it’s a repeating pattern of:
1. “The law, given to us by Christ themselves, requires us to condemn and fight against <insert any of the Human Rights>“
2. Eventually the society forces the Church to stop this nonsense
3. “The Church has always been a proponent of <that same human right>“
4. GOTO 1
This is a slow process, so people no longer remember the Church was against eg woman voting rights, or against freedom of thought or freedom of religion. Same way in a hundred years nobody will remember it used to be homophobic.
Women voting rights was never doctrinal - no Catholic was bound to believe women should or should not be able to vote, it was just a popular opinion among the laity with room for disagreement.
"Freedom of thought" - the Catholic Church, was, is, and remains against certain types of thought. You can't be a Satanist for example. However, other types of thought are once again not doctrinal, so it is a matter of personal opinion again.
"Freedom of religion" - the Catholic Church once again does not put this in doctrine and has not edited doctrine, but once again there is a popular opinion that may change, but nobody is obligated to have an opinion on it.
The opinions of it's members are changing, but the doctrines (the things you must believe) remain unchanged, even when unpopular. The Church's ban on birth control is very unpopular among the laity but hasn't moved.
Of course Catholics were bound to be against woman rights - the pope himself told them so.
Your problem here is you seem to believe anyone cares about the (largely made up) distinction between doctrinal vs non-doctrinal, which in real life doesn’t matter at all.
Actually, if you enter Catholic spheres (which I have to examine their thinking), they argue about doctrine and non-doctrinal all the freaking time. Constantly. They argue whether they need to follow the Pope on something or not and their internal Canon Law requirements without stop.
However, there is no dispute about what is doctrinal. There is instead dispute about how that doctrine is put in practice. Such as can a Pope do Action A without being doctrinally not Pope anymore, and what non-doctrinal process would need to follow.
The theologians discuss that, because that’s their job, but it doesn’t matter to anyone else. The difference has no consequences, but also has no real reasoning behind it.
They don’t. However, many right-wingers can’t quite understand how one can defend someone being persecuted for racial reasons (Muslims in this case), yet strongly disagree with them on some other aspect.
I've never understood this response: everybody already knows that "Muslim" is not a race.
When people refer to racism against Muslims, they're referring to the ways in which Western countries, in particular, racialize a religious group: our tendency to treat Islam as a uniquely Arab/ME phenomenon and to assume the contrapositive as well (that anybody who looks vaguely Middle Eastern is Muslim). These are all patently obvious ways in which people are racist against Muslims, even though "Muslim" itself is not a race.
I think you're kind of missing the point here that "LGBTQ" rights are just human rights. If the regime you live under doesn't respect individual autonomy then everyone is gonna have a bad time.
As an LGBT, I agree its a difficult situation. On the one hand, as you likely do, I feel strongly about private business owners having the freedom to run their businesses the way they see fit, including being able to choose their customers. If someone told me they don't want to sell to LGBT, I would accept that decision without complaint because I respect their autonomy (in fact, I would be happy I avoided giving them money). On the other hand, what happens when everyone in an area decides that LGBT, or black people, or Muslims, or anyone else universally aren't welcome. Those people basically get shut out of society, and that doesn't seem like something we want to encourage at a societal level either.
Finally, as much as it pains me to say it, there is also the matter of logical consistency: Many Christians would go absolutely ape shit if they were stopped in a store while wearing a cross and told "hey, your kind isn't wanted here"; yet because their preferred exclusion is noted in an old book (which of course, they wrote) that is suddenly perfectly acceptable.
> On the other hand, what happens when everyone in an area decides that LGBT, or black people, or Muslims, or anyone else universally aren't welcome.
It doesn't need to be everyone to have a chilling effect on the quality of life for people in the targeted group. I'm all for freedom of expression in general but treating someone badly because of how they were born is just mean.
Now consider the cake. The baker, contrary to headlines, didn't object to selling them a cake. If they wanted a generic cake like the dozens on his shelves, or wanted to buy bottled water or any other of his creations, he would have sold it to them immediately.
He objected to making them a personalized cake that endorsed their relationship on it, which would require his creativity to be poured into something explicitly endorsing the issue. And his argument is that if he can be forced to write something endorsing their relationship, why couldn't, say, a racist come in demanding he write something racist on a cake?
I don't really object to that balance. If it's something generic and impersonal, sell it, and if it's something very personal, have the right to object. That's not significant exclusion from society. Are you truly significantly excluded from society when you can get the same service from a 7 minute walk to Walmart (as the court case declared), or buy some icing and do it yourself?
In this specific case, I agree with you and the courts. You shouldn't be able to compel speech (i.e. their writing) and you shouldn't be able to compel custom work. I'm speaking more broadly about regional discrimination. If there is only one grocery store in twenty miles, you don't have a car, and you're told you can't do business there, that's a problem. However, this is not the context here and you clearly imply that such behavior would not be ok.
A liberal state is not capable of granting religious freedom. All it can offer are religious rights, which means that you are allowed to imagine that you are Christian (or whatever other religious affiliation), and you may dress up in funny costumes and participate in funny symbolic rituals, but as soon as you attempt to exercise your religion in a way that contradicts the economic logic of our society, then the state has to crush you as ruthlessly as any political enemy.
To ask the liberal state to do otherwise is nonsense. If you want to exercise your religion in a way that exceeds the bounds that are set for you by the state, you have to step outside of your fantasy and engage directly in politics to convince the rest of society that your religion should have greater authority than the state. If you actually believe that your religion is greater than all others, then you should be able to prove it in the political realm.
"you should be able to prove it in the political realm."
Well, you've got Saudi Arabia, and countless Arab nations. You've got Israel, and there's also Vatican City (which is a nation inside Italy, albeit a small one).
However they aren't exactly popular in liberal society...
Vatican isn’t a nation. It’s a country, created by Mussolini. It was never a real nation, only a bribe to convince the Church to not interfere with “fight against communism”.
Actually, the Vatican City is a remnant of the Papal States, a nominal nation that encompassed significant parts of Italy for much of the Middle Ages. And the Papal States were a descendant of the "Holy Roman Empire," which encompassed massive parts of Europe during the Middle Ages. Vatican City is the smallest that it's been in over a thousand years.
In the narrowest ruling possible, for that one time only on a technicality, which means that baker is currently being sued again. And it doesn't change most LGBTQ activists want him to lose, with their agenda triumphing over his autonomy.
Except that if you check what Catholics, many Christians, and Islamic texts teach about LGBTQ behavior, you'll find that what the Churches/Mosques teach is very different than what the majority of people in those churches follow.
The "tolerant and accepting" ones are the ones the churches would call "apostate" or "heretical."
> if you check what Catholics, many Christians, and Islamic texts teach about LGBTQ behavior, you'll find that what the Churches/Mosques teach is very different than what the majority of people in those churches follow
One, most of those texts have been translated and transliterated many times over. Two, it's no shock that every religion heavily editorialists its scripture. Three, the only people calling out heretics and apostates among their flock are, almost by definition, the extremists.
TL; DR You can be well received in the eyes of your God(s) without having to promote or support the murder and oppression of your fellow human beings.
You are drawing a straw man. Outside of Islam (which Sharia law, I believe, calls for death by stoning for Gay sex), most Christian religions do not call for the death of LGBTQ people. They oppose the agenda and oppose adoption, that's very different than supporting "murder."
Second, the claim "You can be well received in the eyes of your God" is a religious statement, because you don't know what my God is.
Third, "heretics and apostates among their flock are, almost by definition, the extremists." Maybe religion itself is "extreme" and most of its followers are lax, not that the followers are tolerant and there are a few extreme and intolerant members.
The first major step towards making Church civilized was probably the Great Revolution. But it required many, many more sacrifices over the next few centuries.
Or maybe it disagrees with your worldview, you can't wrap your head around other people's beliefs and refuse to even try to understand where they may be coming from (making you a de-facto bigot), and you call it a name because you don't care to understand it or unwrap it.
It’s not about the worldview, it’s about understanding what’s written and realizing it’s all bullshit. In this particular case it’s about a fake criterium, which was only invented after deciding “shellfish good, gays bad” to provide an excuse.
Well, ask any Christian who considers themselves devout, and they'll happily remind you about Sodom and Gamorrah, Biblical cities which were destroyed by fire falling from heaven for homosexuality.
> Well, ask any Christian who considers themselves devout, and they'll happily remind you about Sodom and Gamorrah, Biblical cities which were destroyed by fire falling from heaven for homosexuality.
Actually, as a lifelong Christian, that's...disputed. A very common interpretation is that they were destroyed for violating the obligations of hospitality to guests. Even assuming an absence of translation error in the phrase translated as indicating a desire to use the guests sexually (itself a point of intense debate), the offense isn't “gay sex” but “demanding to have guests turned over to be gang-raped”.
I think most people would agree that there is a giant moral gulf between the morality of consensual sex and the morality of demanding someone turn over guests to a rape mob.
Sure, a much stronger argument can be made from Leviticus than S&G, but S&G features showing divine judgement and doesn't invite pointing out the way the way OT rules are cherry-picked by Christians (even if it is canonical cherry-picking, since it is specified in the NT.)
Yeah, but most of that (with explicit exceptions, which include rules sexual morality) was explicitly deemed to be Jewish ceremonial disciplines not applicable to Gentile Christians (and, by implication, other non-Jews). See, generally, Acts 15.
So while that works with some of the arguments people sometimes make from Leviticus, it doesn’t help with the rules on sexual morality.
> Why are you afraid to admit that your religion prohibits homosexuality?
Christianity doesn't have a single unitary rule of sexuality and not all forms of Christianity prohibit homosexuality, even in terms of thr general doctrine of organized groups. And even within organized groups whose official doctrine says one thing, there are dissenters on various points, and homosexuality is a common one.
Moreover, I’ve been responding to points about arguments from what the Bible says, which is a distinct thing from what (any form of) Christianity says. Christians (both organized groups and, within them, individuals) have a variety of approaches to the role of the Bible and its interpretation. There's no strong, general reason to comment about the doctrine of my religion (personally or organizationally) in a discussion of the content of the Bible.
Why are you so eager to jump into a subthread where it is irrelevant and point out that your religion prohibits homosexuality?
Because homosexuality is prohibited in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. We take pride that Islam is the only one with the courage to stick to its roots without appeasing the latest fad of the day. This is a testament that it has not undergone corruption.
> Because homosexuality is prohibited in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.
This is simply false as a generalization of Judaism and Christianity. For that matter, it seems to be untrue as a generalization of Islam, as well, as their are organized Islamic groups that deny that the anti-gay stance is doctrinally valid, juat as there are in the other two groups.
In all three there is a historical nominal prohibition of homosexuality, in at least Islam and Christianity that got treated a lot more seriously than it was for moat of history sometime in the last couple centuries, and in all three there are modern movements, and both organized groups with distinct clergy that reject the traditional prohibition and movements within organized groups that still uphold the prohibition which nevertheless reject it.
None can claim to be the only one to stick universally to the prohibition without playing No True Scotsman (which, to be fair, religious groups historically do a lot of.)
It is absolutely, unconditionally true in Islam. It is established in Islam that anyone who denies a core established aspect of the religion (the term used is معلوم من الدين بالضرورة) is no longer Muslim. For example, you can't be a Muslim if you deny the Oneness of God.
Homosexuality is absolutely and clearly prohibited in the Quran and many Hadiths, e.g.[1][2]. These things are not open to interpretation at all.
> None can claim to be the only one to stick universally to the prohibition without playing No True Scotsman
Attempting to apply a fallacy to where it doesn't apply is a fallacy in and of itself. I'm sure you won't entertain when a flat earther or antivaxxer applies the no true scotsman. At some point, we have laws and clear cut texts that are not open to interpretation. The prohibition of homosexuality in Islam is one of them. Anyone who attempts to deny it can be trivially torn apart because the texts are so clear and unanimous. Those "groups" you're referring to are laughable, and have no understanding of the basics of Arabic, let alone Quran and Hadith knowledge, Arabian history, scholarly consensus, etc.
Two reasons: first, we know some religions do that, and we also know it can be got rid of and nothing bad happens. Second: because if your religion requires one to be a criminal, a civilized society will make sure it’s either fixed, or disappears.
Religion can be gotten rid off and nothing bad happens? I take it you haven't seen what the likes of Mao, Stalin, Lenin, and Hitler did.
No, we're here today because of religion. You owe many of the luxuries of modern life because of the Golden Age of Islam. Your definition of "criminal" just happens to follow the latest fad of the day. Read https://www.kirkdurston.com/blog/unwin for a very brief overview.
> I take it you haven't seen what the likes of Mao, Stalin, Lenin, and Hitler did.
Hitler leveraged religion as a tool rather than getting rid of it, and did pretty much the same kind of things as the others (which is individually worse is debatable, though Hitler generally “wins” that competition), so he kind of pretty clearly demonstratee that “getting rid of religion” isn't the source of the problem.
Seems you're picking at straws. Hitler hated Judaism and Christianity. Thankfully (and unfortunately), history speaks for itself. The worst and most horrid atrocities and mass murdering were committed under atheistic anti-religion regimes. Clearly, "getting rid of religion" is a straw man that some people like to invoke because they pretend to live in a fairy tale. We're seeing it today in the atheist West. They got rid of religion, only to replace it with tribalism, racism, identity politics, etc. That's human nature, leave them up to their own device and they will use whatever means to gain power and influence. Believing getting rid of religion is somehow going to fix things has been proven wrong time and time again. Not to mention that it is inherent in humans to believe in the One Creator.
Oh yeah. Not a Christian myself, but I would prefer if someone would steelman the argument rather than the usual wishy-washy business about Sodom and Gomorrah, an area of general crappiness which probably called for smiting along a lot of axes.
You can disagree, but they aren't idiots, they've thought about things. They've had over 2,000 years to think about it. Homosexuality has been around since the Roman era and much earlier.
Of course they aren’t idiots, just liars. There are reasons why the rest of Christianity had to split off from compromised Church half a millennia ago.
> There are reasons why the rest of Christianity had to split off from compromised Church half a millennia ago.
You seem to be ignoring the parts that split with the Roman Catholics long before Protestantism was dreamed up (in the case of the Oriental Orthodox and Church of the East, more than 1000 years before.)
Ask any Christian who know anything about their religion and they’ll know that Sodom had nothing to do with homosexuality; it’s just a translation error.
“Biblical scholars” are often theologians: political officers rather than scientists, they are trained to lie about that. Amount the actual scholars, it’s pretty much the consensus at this point.
Theology is study about religion. Science, by definition cannot apply to things such as determining whether spirits exist. But that doesn't mean that there aren't spirits floating around us, you can't prove that to be scientifically false either. Science also can't tell us if we have a soul, but that's a core element of almost all religions.
By definition, Science does not work on Religion, but that does not make the religion false (because you could have a soul even though science cannot prove it), but rather shows you are hitting the limits of what Science alone can achieve.
And it is not fair, in that case, to call a Bible Scholar not a Scholar because their field intrinsically cannot use what people call "Science."
Science can research religion just fine, like any other ideology and organization. No reason studying Catholicism would be any different from studying Communism, or just one of remaining thousands of religions and their gods.
And it’s perfectly fair to call out someone who is pretending to be a scholar, despite being just a propaganda officer, trained to only repeat, never question.
LGBT rights. Religious rights should be at the absolute bottom of the barrel when they come in contention with any other civil rights.
Anybody can make up whatever bullshit they want and call it a religious belief, and when that doesn’t violate someone else’s rights, then fine, you do you. But just because you believe some bullshit or another doesn’t mean you have the right to trample my civil rights.
Because Western imperialism is very likely only a secondary cause, if any. You see strong condemnation of sodomy all across Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and South Asia, with an extremely wide variety of religious and practical (STD prevention) underlying motivations, even in regions without any history of imperialist occupation, and such cultural norms are stronger in regions with higher birth rates, higher infectious disease death rates and lower hygiene standards.
I know it's a stupid example, but even in the movie "The Brokeback Mountain" the two gay men had families and kids, not only because being gay was ostracized, to put it mildly, but also because having kids was considered a duty, social pressure forced many homosexuals to live a "normal life" to avoid discrimination or worse.
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.
It’s not even like being gay completely prevents people from having kids! There is surrogacy, and artificial insemination, and always an awful lot of kids without parents. As well as plenty of heterosexual couples with fertility problems that society aids instead of criminalizing. It’s pure bigotry to criminalize being gay, there are plenty of ways to encourage people to have families without doing so.
It's kinda amusing how the fertility/procreation strawman started and is already the leading theory for why this bill has been tabled. If you'd listen to a Ghanaian distill it down for ya:
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.
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.
for the downvoting and I want to make clear that I am not in any way agreeing, im just stating a pretty clear observation.
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.
Indeed hardly. If you want to push up the birth rate, do the reverse of what is done to (sensibly) limit it: stop girls from getting an education, promote means of maintaining a patriarchal society (e.g, specific branches of organised religion), limit independent journalism, block foreign media — there is a huge list of actually effective strategies to boneheadedly resort to.
Anti-LGBT+ laws serve a different purpose: useful scapegoats. How is this different from Hungary and Poland?
A prominent world-award-winning fantasy author summarized a convincing argument on the subject a number of years back.[1] His argument is that heterosexual marriage is both necessary and challenging because of the natural differences between the sexes. If we remove stigma from same-sex unions, such as through the efforts of activists, men will tend to prefer same-sex relationships because they are simpler and more enjoyable:
> 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.
So the argument is that if being gay is legal, straight men will turn gay because it's easier than dealing with women? And that strikes you as a convincing argument, does it?
Assuming you aren't trolling, it sounds like you are actually homosexual, you don't know it due to your upbringing, and you're projecting because you think (just like you do) all men are suppressing their inner homosexual desires.
That is quite a creative hypothesis to level at the author of this essay and the significant fraction of the world's population who agree with its sentiment.
> ... 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.
It doesn't, but if you try to ground your homophobia in "evolutionary science" or "social capitalism" then you're not a bad person, you're just staying "facts"!
They adopt. There are plenty of children in the foster care system or orphanages depending on the country whose lives would be greatly improved if they lived with parents regardless of the combinations of genitals or gender identity of those parents.
Or those who are richer and/or in richer countries can use various artificial means.
I think the overwhelming majority of adopted children would disagree.
One's "real" parents aren't always one's biological parents, even outside of formal adoption (cf. plenty of Americans realizing that their older "sister" is actually their mother).
You’d do well to not speak generally but specifically to the case. Sperm bank for women and surrogate moms are non-existent in Ghana. Take a walk on any random street and ask (1) how that woman became pregnant (2) why the child calls the parent mom or dad and you'll get traditional answers. That said, child birth/procreation isn't what the bill protects. We have no such issue in the country.
The existing laws against homosexuality in many countries are largely inherited from the era of colonization, which was not an era of self-determination for African nations, to put it mildly. More diverse views of sexuality are likely to be closer to a true representation of normal human behaviors than prohibition. Newer laws, in Ghana in particular, have been similarly influenced by imported ideals from the West.
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.
Ironically enough, they are now using anti-Western sentiment to shut down LGBT rights.
I remember that one Ugandan guy, Pastor Martin Sempa (sp.) infamous for the “eat the poopoo” video about 10 years ago, going on about how “Africa does not want this sickness. Is this what Barack Obama wants to bring here?” referring to LGBT rights.
Yes this sort of ironic seesaw across times and places is interesting to behold. Sort of reap what you sow kind of thing where old traumas replay themselves across boundaries between people. The positions change back and forth, but the conflict remains.
I'd like to understand why these views persist, and are popular in Africa in particular. What power do they serve and how? Are they simply a simple cause to really behind?
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.
I was responding to a comment that implied these laws were an example of self-determination, and removing them would be an effort to control population growth.
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)
Appreciate this follow-up response, and I apologize for running with what I perceived as a hostility in your earlier response, it's a struggle for sure.
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.
Good first step would be to stop being extra lenient towards religions. Christians are no longer persecuted or discriminated against anywhere in the Western world; they don’t need extra protections or freedoms.
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.
> If you want to be homophobe, it’s fine, but either keep your ideology away from people under 18, or face prison.
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.
Making it illegal in eg Europe to financially support homophobic organizations would reduce their worldwide money supply, and in the long term help their victims in all countries, including Ghana.
There are no homophobic organizations in the country. You don't need people going around stoking hate flames. There are no hate flames to stoke, just people not wanting to see the abnormal. You don't address that with economic sanctions (which seems to be the go-to whip of so-called developed countries). It just won't work.
What are you defining as "homophobia"? Only actions or also rhetoric? Such definition is not always agreed with ease, I hope we might need such definition clear before prison.
These are no answer to definition, however. Is Christian saying "gay is wrong" punish with jail? Is Christian saying "do bad things to gay people" punish with jail? Is Christian saying "no marrying for gay people" punish with jail? Some combination of some?
None, as long as they don’t try to agitate children. Again, same as with drugs or alcohol. (Well, “do bad things” is a crime, but looks the same of you replace homophobia with any other reasoning.)
I wonder if the intense population boom this part of the world is experiencing as well as these policies will lead to a rise of fake asylum claims in the west.
> will lead to a rise of fake asylum claims in the west
In what world would this be a source of fake asylum claims? The potential for actual persecution that meets the internationally recognized standard for asylum seems apparent in this case.
What I do think is that the presence of immigration scams is as old as borders themselves, and that there's no particular reason to refocus an article that's about actual persecution onto handwringing about whether people will (quelle suprise) lie to obtain a better life for themselves and their loved ones.
Your links show it's much less common than I'd think. In all cases you cited the majority of asylum claims were legitimate.
Link 1:
> "It's almost like a war zone for homosexuals," said immigration lawyer Richard Odeleye
> it's not uncommon for gay and lesbian Nigerians to get married simply to keep up appearances. When they come to Canada, they struggle to come to terms with their decision and assume they must be bisexual
...sounds like a good reason to leave and claim asylum.
Out of 2,055 Nigerians:
> a few lawyers were responsible for a "disproportionate" number of claims
Link 2:
> identified 36 as possibly fraudulent
...so a whole criminal enterprise is prepping fake asylum seekers but not even 15% of them are possibly fraudulent?
