Churches Should Welcome LGBTQ+ Community – Charlotte Osei

Former Electoral Commissioner of Ghana, Mrs. Charlotte Osei, has said that she gets worried and concerned when she sees Ghanaians pretending as if everything is alright with the country’s governance.
Speaking on Joy News Super Morning Show, she noted that Ghana is not functioning as a true democratic nation, stating that democracy is inclusive rather than exclusive as it is happening in the country.
“No one is winning in our democracy; we are all losing because democracy is not a spectator spot. You must be actively, creating, maintaining, sustaining and increasing the avenues for inclusion. We must be constantly scanning our environment and looking at our governance and monitoring who is being excluded because we need to carry everybody along. When we don’t carry everyone along, we weaken democracy.
“I get concerned when I hear a lot of ethnic divisions coming up. I get concerned that we are living in this country pretending as if everything is alright with our governance when there is a certain part of our country which is not represented in Parliament. I think that should worry all of us every day. I get concerned when I hear a student being denied admission because of a religious believe or a hairstyle. I get concerned when I hear that a Muslim child in a school is being not allowed to observe their religious beliefs. Those things bother me because it’s almost as if we keep pushing people out rather than of bringing them in “We should be finding ways within our rules and constitution to accommodate believes, accommodate faiths, and accommodate practices”, she said.
She further touched on the issue of LGBTQ+ and its criminalization agenda and indicated that the church should embrace such persons rather than joining the campaign because it is the core mandate of Christians to do such.
She also noted that sidelining such persons can create security concerns for the country since such can fall victim to friendly extremist groups.
“I get concerned even with the gay-lesbian thing and the way we are approaching it. For me, it seems exclusionary rather than inclusive because it is something that a group believes it’s a sin. To legislate sin, I don’t know how… but we are not changing the person, we are legislating against the action. In doing that, depending on the approach you take, you are going to make the person feel he/she is not good enough and not part of us and that bothers me.
“As Christians, we are told to hate the sin and love the sinner so I may not like the whole thing about homosexuality but my constitution must teach me that I must be tolerant of different believes and as a Christian, God judges, the Holy Spirit convicts. My duty as a Christian is to preach the word to world and none of us are saints that is why Jesus said ‘cast the first stone’”, she said.
She stressed that, “I would have like the churches reaching out to them and encouraging them to come and worship, pray together. Doing that does not mean endorsing the sin, it means that you are loving the sinner and you are hating the sin. It must be a more embracing issue and that is what I would love to see at all levels of government.”
Charlotte Osei made it clear that, “When you make people feel they are less than citizens, they are not good enough, you may find out that there are extremist groups out there who reach out to them and make them feel welcomed. The relevance and the value we aren’t giving to them in our group, they will find it outside”.
 
Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini