Religions long march towards repression continues, this time in the African country of Ghana. When an LGBT group tried to open up a center in their capital city of Accra, religious leaders, working in tandem with politicians, sprung into action. While it is already illegal to have same sex sexual relationships, it seems as though even this restrictive and inhumane law was not enough: now they want to jail anyone who dares to help these kinds of groups in any way.

This gay panic is brought to you by Christianity, which seems to believe that the worst thing on earth isn’t the sexual rape and torture of children, but consenting adults having intimate relations they don’t approve of. Forget about the near constant abuse of underage girls and boys, that’s something the public has no interest in uncovering, despite the fact that it’s a serious problem. How bad is it? Here’s a sample of the kind of incidents that happen with disturbing frequency:

Assistant Commissioner of Police, [name anonymised] … made it known to the press [at name of place anonymised] that… Pastor [name anonymised] admitted having sexual intercourse with the girl without her consent, during police interrogations. […] The victim, a member of the church, who was sick went to the pastor (in his house) for healing prayers. In the course of the prayers the pastor touched the mouth of the girl and all of a sudden, she fell floppy […] The victim woke up after about 15 minutes and saw that her pant was loose, and her private parts soaked with semen, an indication that the pastor had had sexual intercourse with her.

Keep in mind that the study that is being quoted could only rely on reported incidents from newspapers. There’s really no telling just how prominent these kinds of crimes are occurring, but if I know my religious organizations (which I certainly do), then I know that abuse is the norm in and Christian church. In order to get people to either ignore or forget about their perpetual and baffling abuse of their own congregants, religious leaders will often chose a scapegoat to rally their victims towards a common cause. The LGBT community is easy pickings, and so long as their population despises them, they have something that will forever distract their flock from ever uncovering the fact that their sheppards are wolves in disguise.