The Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG)
has announced it will open three centers to “rehabilitate” gay
people in Accra (the nation's capital), Kumasi and Akropong by the
close of the year.
According to the Ghana News Agency
(GNA), the church, which lists 8 presbyteries, or diocese, on its
website, wants to “reduce the spread of the practice in the
society.”
“I have been a minister for over 33
years and I've ministered to homosexuals, some of my students who are
now ministers have ministered to homosexuals and they have come out
of it, so when I am talking I know what I am talking about,” the
church's leader, the Right Reverend Professor Emmanuel Martey, told
Joy News, the Accra-based
news outlet.
Martey described being gay as the
result of demonic spirits: “[W]e will let them go through a
vigorous spiritual exercise and if it is spiritual, it will come out,
they will be free.”
Anti-gay sentiment in the African
nation is alarmingly high and openly supported by lawmakers.
Last month, a government minister
called for the arrests of all people suspected of being gay.
“All efforts are being made to get
rid of these people,” Paul Evans Aidoo, the minister for the
Western Region of Ghana, is quoted as saying last month on Joy FM.
Aidoo called on the Bureau of National
Investigation to round up the suspects: “Once they have been
arrested, they will be brought before the law.”