Muslim leaders of Ghana blame coronavirus on ‘transgender and lesbianism’. Again
A representative of Ghana’s Muslim Mission. (Ghana Muslim Mission/Peace FM Online)
The Muslim Mission of Ghana has used national prayers during coronavirus lockdown to blame the pandemic on “transgender and lesbianism”.
People in Ghana undertook two days of fasting and praying this week, on Wednesday and Thursday, at the insistence of Ghana’s president and the chief imam.
While this was supposed to be a time to pray for “Allah’s intervention against the coronavirus”, Ghana’s Muslim Mission couldn’t resist the opportunity to blame LGBT+ people for the global health crisis.
Calling on Ghanaians to pray for those infected with the coronavirus, and for those in quarantine or isolation because of the disease, the Muslim Mission of Ghana – as one of the five messages it broadcast to the nation – said that “abominable” LGBT+ people are to blame.
“It is important for us to acknowledge our sins against the world,” the Muslim Mission said, “especially the most abominable acts such as homosexuality, lesbianism, transgender, destruction of water bodies and forests.”
Repenting for the “sin” of “homosexuality, lesbianism, transgender” will “bring us Allah’s mercies and intervention in fighting the pandemic in Ghana and the rest of the world”, the Islamic organisation added.
It was Ghana’s chief imam, Sheikh Dr Osamanu Sharubutu, who last week used his national address about coronavirus to call LGBT+ people “demonic”.
Addressing the country via a broadcast from his house after Ghana’s president Akufo-Addo banned usual meeting at mosques, wedding and other gatherings, Sharubutu called for hand sanitiser dispensers to be placed outside mosques and also, bizarrely, for the president to ban meetings of LGBT+ people.
Sharubutu said that it’s “demonic” and “shameful” for Muslim people to engage in gay sexual activities.
“The almighty Allah created woman for a man and vice versa. It is against the holy Quaran to indulge in such unacceptable behaviour. I am urging all not to indulge in it,” Sharubutu said.
Ghana still has colonial-era laws prohibiting gay sex.
