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Cardinal Peter Appiah Turkson says it’s ‘unfair’ for anyone to impose the legalisation of LGBTQIA+ in any country. 

He was emphatic that the practice should not be an imposition; he also said criminalising it is equally insensitive.

“My position has simply been this: that LGBT and gay people may not be criminalised because they’ve committed no crime." 

“Neither should these positions be imposed on cultures that are not ready for that," the most respected Cardinal from Ghana said in an interview with the BBC’s Talk Hard, monitored by Peacefmonline.

Read below BBC’s Stephen Sackur and Cardinal Peter Appiah Turkson interview on LGBTQIA+

Stephen Sackur: “Let’s start with something which is very current: the discussion in the church on key issues of sexuality and gender."

“Now I refer the beginning of this interview to Pope Francis and the hopes that have been vested in him to show leadership. I will put it to you that on some of these key issues, for example, the church's attitude to homosexuality, for example, the possibility of giving blessings to gay marriages in church, and the attitude toward the LGBTQ community generally, Pope Francis has sent a confusion, not a clear, message.

Cardinal Turkson: “No, but lately, about a week or so ago, he came out with a small document just saying clearly what his position on all of these are, that LGBT people can be blessed, they can be admitted to the church, and all of that, they can even become godparents of children and people who are being baptized, and all of that. So he [Pope] himself has signalled, partly stuff that used to be left neck below, undecided and all that and come clearly with these...

Stephen Sackur: “So you see him [Pope] as now following a policy which many people regard as, within the Catholic perspective, liberal? doesn’t that put you [Turkson] personally in a very difficult position? Because your own position, for example, on homosexuality seems quite clear, I have looked at your record over many years, and you have been a consistent conservative on these issues."

Cardinal Turkson: “Those are the expressions again: conservative, progressive, you know, my thing has been this, and I’ll refer you to an interesting episode, a situation I got into responding to an invitation to go speak in Slovenia at one point, and then the Bishops were wondering whether to allow it because there was a lot of media agitation. 
“My position has simply been this: that LGBT and gay people may not be criminalised because they’ve committed no crime, but neither should this position become something to be imposed on cultures which are not yet ready to accept stuff like that. 

Stephen Sackur: “You are Ghanaian, this summer, the Ghanaian Parliament passed it is called the Appropriate sexual rights and family values at which a tougher regime for gay people clearly criminalises homosexuality in Ghana, up to 10 years in prison for LGBT... The Ghanaian Catholic Bishops Conference said that western countries must stop in certain attempts to impose unacceptable foreign cultural values on us. Are you backing that statement and therefore defending the criminalization of homosexuality?

Cardinal Turkson: “What I just said to you is, my position is contrary to what has just been passed: to criminalize anybody, if you are able to identify the crime, LGBT cases are not to be criminalised but neither, and this, I think, is basically what caused all of this in Ghana. The Ghanaian culture has known of people with some such tendencies, and I say this because there is an expression in the local Akan language of men who act like women, and women who act like men, there is an expression for them [Kojo Besia], which means that this phenomenon is known in the culture in the community and all of that. 

“But nobody went around to make any policy out of that; now I think what caused all of these was our attempts to link some foreign donations and grants to certain positions, which needed to be imposed in the name of freedom, in the name of respect for rights and all that. I think that is what led to this thing going to Parliament.”