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Malawi church leaders have backed government for criminalizing homosexuality and urged Western nations to withdraw threats to halt aid to the country.

Bishop Joseph Bvumbwe, head of the Malawi Council of Churches (MCC), a grouping of protestant churches in the country, said in a media statement made available to Nyasa Times that the West should not be allowed to use its financial power to force Malawi to accept homosexuality.

“As Christians, we believe that sex was sanctioned for man and woman who come together as one body, and not between people of the same sex or gender (Eph. 5: 22-33),” Bvumbwe said in the statement.

Germany has also withheld half of its aid to Malawi after President Bingu wa Mutharika in January assented to a Penal Code Amendment Bill passed by the Malawi Parliament to expand criminal penalties to adult women who engage in consensual homosexual relations.

The spiritual leaders however said the homosexual acts are a violation of the revealed truth of the complementarities of males and females according to the bible quoting Genesis 1: 27, 28, 2:18-25.

“We uphold the current Penal Code provision that criminalise homosexual acts and or practices, in as far as they bring about reform,” said the statement .

“MCC hold that the Church should treat practicing and self-affirming homosexuals as sinners just as any other persons engaged in the persistent, unrepentant acts of sin. They should be loved and ministered to. The church therefore must accompany the homosexuals in their struggle to transform their lives,” he said.

The church body said Malawi is not ready to embrace homosexuality practices saying it would not only threaten the family unit as instituted by God, but would also contradict Malawi’s rich traditions, culture and its spirituality as a God fearing nation.

“As a Council we pledge our support and remains a partner on the government development agenda. It is therefore morally wrong and unacceptable for any rich countries or donor agencies to use their financial muscle to push for the so called gay marriages in Malawi.

“We take this as an opportunity to inform the nation and the world at large that just like the Malawi Government, the Malawi Council of Churches shall not at any cost compromise and will not support moves to make homosexuality legal in Malawi,” added the statement.

Rights defenders maintain that the current penal code amendment to criminalise consensual same-sex relationships is in direct violation of Malawi’s constitutional and international legal obligations.

But MCC noted that the European Court of Human Rights on 24th June 2010 ruled that “European Countries are not obliged to allow gay marriages, saying individual states may still decide what form it should take because marriage has ‘deep-rooted social and cultural connotations which may differ largely from one society to another’.”

But the donors — Britain, France, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Norway and the United States – said recently that they “share concerns voiced by many Malawians about certain negative trends.”

The new media law, which allows the information minister to ban publications deemed contrary to the public interest, has “heightened these concerns,” the donor countries said in a joint statement .—(Reporting by Judith Moyo, Nyasa Times)