Ghanaian transgender, Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi, has asserted that christianity has a recorded history of LGBTQ+ relationships in the Bible.
According to her, these relationships may not necessarily have been sexual as in her opinion, LGBTQ+ is not limited to sexual relations.
During an interview with Samuel Eshun on e.TV Ghana’s ‘Fact Sheet’ show, she cited the account of David and Jonathan as an example of an LGBTQ+ relationship.
“If you will recall the story of Jonathan and David, that actually has an LGBTQ identity where a man will love another man, whether there is a sexual relation or not.
If we are talking about LGBTQ relationship, we are not talking about sex or sexual relations. I am sure David and Jonathan may have migrated into a very intimate relationship, whether there was an account on it or not, that is an LGBTQ relationship ,” she said.
Elikem added that christians must stop forcing their laws onto everyone else because “Ghana is not a christian nation and has only been built on unity in diversity.”
The Bible portrays an unselfish friendship between young David and Jonathan who was about 30 years older than David.
The Bible states that the two developed a “close friendship.” The account has it that David married Jonathan’s sister, Michal.
After Jonathan’s death, David took in his disabled son, Mephibosheth and treated him as a royal.
Background
Earlier this year, the Speaker of Parliament received a private member bill from some MPs that would expand on the current law that provides up to three years in prison for same-sex activity.
Reports has it that the new bill when passed will prohibit and criminalize advocacy, funding and act of LGBTQ+ while promoting conversion therapy programs seeking to “convert” people from homosexuality to heterosexuality.
Meanwhile, fifteen renowned legal, academic and civil society professionals have filled a memorandum challenging the anti-gay legislation submitted to Parliament.
In the memorandum, they contend that the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021, which seeks to criminalize LGBTQ+ and adjacent activities, is an “impermissible invasion of the inviolability of human dignity.”
Some Christian leaders, on the other hand, have submitted a memorandum to Parliament on the Proper Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, endorsing the bill.
