Are Africans Right to Criminalize Homosexuality?

In May Uganda passed a law condemning homosexual acts and calling for the death penalty in extreme cases. Predictably, there was an outcry in the West and even Christian bloggers have weighed in on the issue.

Samuel Sey is from Ghana in west Africa.  He now lives in the United States and is an outspoken Christian. While not completely agreeing with the law, Sey nonetheless defended the more than 30 African countries who criminalize homosexual behavior in varying degrees.

According to Sey: “When Uganda passed the Anti-Homosexuality Act last week, some evangelicals in the West reacted with revulsion—dismissing such a law as non-Christian. What separates those evangelicals from African Christians is that African Christians are repulsed by homosexual sin, not anti-homosexual laws…in Western society—Biblical Christianity is now considered the abomination, not homosexuality.”

The American Left claims to love black people, but they now believe Africans are the most hateful and bigoted people in the world.

Another interesting observation from Sey: “[The Left’s] reactions to Uganda’s law expose their fraudulent beliefs about multiculturalism. They don’t really believe in multiculturalism. They don’t really believe all cultures are equally valid. They don’t believe all cultures can coexist.”

Finally, Sey concludes: “Uganda’s law on homosexuality is imperfect. But it’s surely better than America’s embrace of abomination. Yet some evangelicals in the West seem more willing to back the sexual revolution than to oppose it.”

What the Left practices is what one Nigerian scholar calls ideological neocolonialism. For decades, Western nations have pressured African nations to adopt leftist views on abortion and homosexuality in exchange for money.

Russell Moore is the editor of Christianity Today magazine and a well-known Evangelical leader. He used strong language in condemning Uganda’s law.   “Not everything that’s a sin is a crime. To equate all sin with crime, without the authority to do so, is itself a sin against God—to take the name of the Lord our God in vain. If the historic Christian vision of marriage and family is true and good and beautiful, as I believe it is, then we demonstrate that truth, goodness, and beauty to our unbelieving neighbors through our witness—not by threatening to kill them.”

Moore argues that laws against homosexual behavior aren’t Christian and are counterproductive.

Let me share some of my own observations on this issue:

First, Western societies have made the decision to affirm homosexual behavior. It’s impossible to watch the offerings of Hollywood these days without encountering a very appealing gay character. Male homosexuals comprise about 1.5% of American men.  Evangelical Christians are about 30% of our population. The former you see portrayed sympathetically in every entertainment program. Evangelicals may as well not exist. We make virtually no appearances in popular culture and when we do we are often portrayed as corrupt hypocrites. In Hollywood’s judgment Gays are good and Christians are bad.

Second, Africans are sensitive to sexual issues because of their gigantic AIDS crisis. Worst in the world. The highest HIV infection rates in the world are in southern Africa. Sexual immorality is killing millions of Africans. One can see why Uganda and other nations might want to mitigate destructive behavior.

Third, remember, it is only very recently that America decriminalized homosexual behavior. Only in 2003 did our Supreme Court declare such laws unconstitutional. We should go slow in condemning Africans for laws that were our own until a few years ago.

Fourth, this would be a good time to read again Dennis Prager’s brilliant essay, “Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality.” Prager says that without the restraints on sexual behavior in Judaism and Christianity Western culture would not exist. He adds that a society gets more homosexuality if it encourages it. 

Surely there is a middle way. Society can discourage homosexual relations without criminalizing them. An analogy I often use is smoking. Society feels free to condemn smoking without putting smokers in jail. But no one has any problem separating sinner and sin. That is, separating the smoker and his value as a human being. The gay lifestyle is far more destructive than smoking. Yet we are forbidden from discouraging it. Quite the opposite, we are persecuted if we do not affirm it.

God clearly condemns homosexual behavior in His Word. Disobeying the Word of God is always risky and ultimately destructive. We need to pay attention to what He says for our own good, the good of the Kingdom, and the good of the human race.

Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful new year!

More: See my video, The Negative Effects of Gay Marriage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M3iGiKKvs0

The Uganda law: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/22/uganda-passes-tough-antigay-law-bans-identification-as-lgbtq

Samuel Sey: https://wng.org/opinions/what-makes-for-good-law-1686222789?mkt_tok=NzEwLVFSUi0yMDkAAAGMOlBuVdMMMIIYrMVE3gi1VWpUpnehGIOgcpvpF-GW8EDCFGuLnoj5MjoKchzFBHJayJYlk34sKldnesBnzTQPlxwWKem0kmocCI9Ib4C3LsUE

Russell Moore: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2023/may-web-only/uganda-anti-lgbtq-ted-cruz-russell-moore-biblical-sin-crime.html

Dennis Prager’s brilliant essay condemning homosexual marriage and the gay lifestyle: https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/marriage-and-family/sexuality/judaism-s-sexual-revolution-why-judaism-rejected-homosexuality.html

Being gay is not biological: https://unherd.com/2023/05/the-aesthetics-of-being-gay/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=4a837fe16f&mc_eid=5b400e1632

No gay gene: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02585-6

“Born this way” is a lie: https://wng.org/opinions/the-lies-of-born-this-way-1691493975?mkt_tok=NzEwLVFSUi0yMDkAAAGNdM0S3ENhCN8C4ef1kkTwocvjAU2mTCvgJtvjiz4-mXb6lHxya3m-ui0im_3zNy6ElqkEeX1YIalp0QCKHGS-ld8Lpd36oqFLReJJyHcHtZ2h