Explaining Libertarianism To Dummies: Manasseh Azure Awuni’s Gay Marriage Faux Pas

We constantly decry the ignorance, bigotry, and backwards mentality of our countrymen on this site, and for good reason. There is scarcely a nation on this globe so actively dedicated to remaining in a time long gone.

This mentality is often fuelled by our irrational superstitions and a dogmatic approach to the white man’s religion. This mentality often manifests in a bigoted approach to dealing with perceived deviants; persecuting ‘witches’, lynching homosexuals; and the most common, giving our money to ‘pastors’.

This mentality has manifested tenfold in our reaction to the US Supreme Court ruling legalising gay marriage across the country. Quietly sitting in our third world country, we’ve all turned into armchair pundits, armed with our 2,000 year old Holy Book and pronouncing impending Armageddon.

Manasseh Azure Awuni is widely regarded as one of the best journalists in Ghana right now; which I would concede is probably a fair assessment. He is also one of those bible thumping, 1st century bigots this country is overrun with, as a Facebook post of his this afternoon showed.

Manasseh put forward a very shallow, close minded riposte to the Ghanaians who are describing those opposing the judgement as backwards. In a post he probably thinks puts forward a cogent argument against both homosexuals and his perceived Ghanaian opponents, he did nothing but prove himself as being one of the close minded individuals LGBT opponents often are.

No doubt it is a populist post, with most Ghanaians having that same mindset. But the arguments put forth are so shallow minded it beggars belief that a supposed top journalist in the country would confidently display them as his views on the issues. But in the land of the blind…

“I don’t care so much about what America says about gay marriages. It is their country and their laws. It is their pampers-wearing men and their rotten asses.

“What I cannot stand the impression created by some of our kith and kin here that those of us who don’t support this madness are backward. There can be “good reason” for anything, including armed robbery, but does that mean it is right? And those who keep asking about the definition of right and wrong should realise that even animals know better. And any human being who thinks there is nothing like right or wrong is worse than a beast” Manasseh wrote

This was the well thought out, cogent argument of Manasseh Awuni. He called homosexuality, or support of it, ‘madness’, claims animals ‘know better’, said any human who thinks there’s nothing like right and wrong is worse than a beast.

The first two claims are practically the same, and both are empirically wrong. Manasseh is a Christian, so I doubt he places much stock in the power of empirical evidence, after all he’s a man of faith.

What is right or wrong, however, is a philosophical argument far above the pay grade of both Manasseh and myself. Christians think they know it, Muslims think they also do; but the truth is in all cases it is men and their interpretation of it that reigns during any period of history.

Homosexuality is far from madness, and supporting equal rights for fellow human beings is a noble cause. Mankind has fought for the equality of blacks, women, several other oppressed minorities throughout history; yet some of us who were once oppressed cannot see the forest for the trees in this case because of our own warped thinking; the product of our religious upbringing.

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He ignorantly proclaims that ‘even’ animals know better, not knowing approximately 10% of all species engage in homosexual behaviour. It also smacks of the double standard most religious people dabble in, complaining that we’re higher beings and ‘God’s chosen’ when scientists proclaim that we’re nothing but evolved primates; but then claiming we should emulate the same heterosexual practices they think all animals engage in.

As for the religious objections to the practice, I’ll repeat the same trumpet I’ve been blowing since this issue broke. I find ISIS abhorrent, but at least I can respect the fact they’re willing to stand by their interpretations of their scriptures. Adultery, homosexuality, and apostasy are capital crimes under Sharia, and they gleefully carry them out.

But Christians would lead the biggest hypocritical lives they can, then fly into outrage when an issue they think contradicts their values pops up. Most Christians today fornicate, lie, cheat, and flout the laws of the bible willy-nilly, 24/7. However when convenient, they whip out that same bible to support the claim they want us to feel is morally right/wrong in the moment.

Leviticus 20:13 proscribes the death penalty for homosexuality. Adultery is also a capital crime, whilst eating of shell fish and cutting one’s hair are all prohibited in the bible. Nobody carries out these practices, yet the bible Christians spend most of their lives ignoring this, which is supposed to guide the lives of everyone else in a situation Christians feel is immoral.

You can try to make a good sociological argument against gay marriage and its potential effects on the future of the human race, and then maybe you would be listened to (probably not, none of those hold); but immediately you bring religion into the equation you open yourself up to charges of hypocrisy and double standards that there is no way you can stand up to.

We have lived in times past when religion held the most power, and that was some of the worst parts of human history. Most states are secular now, for good reasons, and fighting for equal rights for all its citizens.

For some reason a portion have decided an imaginary higher being loves all of us yet hates a part of his own creation enough that he would destroy the world due to their actions. I say if God did not destroy the world over the inquisition, the crusades, and the slave trade; a few men and women getting married would be pretty inconsequential to him.

Manasseh’s post riled me a little more than it should have, but for a supposed educated journalist to pass comments indistinguishable from that of the average uneducated Ghanaian in relation to this issue is beyond pardon. You can make arguments against homosexuality all you want, but the arguments he made are laughable, and hold no water when held up to empirical scientific scrutiny.

Sometimes it’s difficult to have a conversation with people when they have no grasp of the fundamentals—and I believe this is what led the 2011 Ghana’s Best Journalist-Manasseh Azure Awuni to make the above comment.

Of course subject ignorance can catch up with everyone, especially if the person lacks the basic understanding. At best, persons who have no clear understanding of the arguments surrounding a case should not comment, especially if their comments excavate the gutter of bigotry.

From the above comment, Manasseh Azure Awuni relegates the issue of Gay Rights to ordinary Right or Wrong—whether he was talking about legal right/wrong or moral right/wrong, he completely misses the point. We have inherent rights, the perfect box in which a person’s right not to be discriminated against falls.

Certain things are fundamentally wrong and irrespective of  where you place these things, either in the morality or legality box, they are wrong—and a typical example is; the raping of a baby.

In the context of this conversation, any progressive discrimination, obvious discrimination and conscious discrimination against another human being  because of a protected characteristic should be considered both legally and morally wrong. You can never reasonably justify why you raped a baby—and you should not also be allowed to justify why we should discriminate against a person by virtue of race, sex, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

As someone sarcastically wrote on Facebook; “until we criminalise Adultery and Fornication, heterosexuals and bigots won’t get the point!.”

Even if we want to consider Manasseh Azure Awuni’s lame argument of “what is wrong or right” (of course we all know what he means here), then surely, adultery, fornication, gossiping and several others are equally wrong under whatever religious umbrella or moral landscape.

What is strikingly ignorant and pathetic is the fact that, Manasseh Azure Awuni said animals even know better—perhaps, he is not privy to the fact that “gay animal behaviour has been spotted in 1,500 different species, and reliably recorded in a third of these cases” by scientists. Lots of animals engage in homosexual behaviour and I think I should help him with this resource.

But then again, irrespective of your education, religion is enough of a problem to stand as a bulwark against your critical thinking.