A U.S.-based Christian nationalist hate group and anti-LGBTQ+ activists in two African nations have come out with an admission of colluding to purge homosexuality from the continent.  

Anti-LGBTQ+ activists in Senegal and Ghana have gone on record saying MassResistence provided advice and counsel while they pushed punitive new legislation targeting gay people.

Related

Senegal doubles penalties for homosexuality amid gay sex panic

In Senegal, a measure passed by Parliament in March will double penalties in the far West African nation for homosexuality, described in the legislation as “acts against nature.” Pending signature of the bill, same-sex acts in Senegal will now earn 5-10 years in prison. Acts committed with a minor are subject to the maximum penalty.

MassResistence took a victory lap over the measure.

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“There’s a renewed push to put in place these strict bans on the promotion and proliferation of LGBT ideology now because President ​Trump is not in the business of harassing and bullying countries to incorporate these destructive ideologies,” the group’s field director, Arthur Schaper, told Reuters after the legislation passed.

Schaper said MassResistence was contacted in December 2024 by representatives of And Samm Jikko Yi, a Senegalese network of Islamic and civil society organizations, following the election of Senegal’s new president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye.

Faye and the candidate for prime minister both ran on a pledge to increase penalties for homosexuality in the Muslim-majority nation.

Ababacar Mboup, the former coordinator and honorary president of And Samm Jikko Yi, said he and Schaper discussed tactics for awareness-raising, mobilization, and advocacy with Senegalese government officials, in line with the Massachusetts group’s expertise attacking LGBTQ+ rights and pushing “pro-family laws and policies.”  

“The high rates of disease, dysfunction, and death associated with these sexual paraphilias are too great to ignore,” Schaper told Reuters of what the group calls “the homosexual lifestyle.”

The latest effort by MassResistence in the U.S. has been a cut-and-paste campaign to turn back marriage equality. Republicans in five state legislatures have now used the group’s language in nearly identical resolutions calling for the overturn of Obergefell v Hodges, the landmark 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized marriage equality nationwide.

The group is promoting the same tactics in Africa.

Frank Mackay Anim-Appiah, executive director of the Ghanaian anti-LGBTQ+ group Freedom International, told Reuters he and Schaper had exchanged “educational materials” and discussed the need to curtail LGBTQ+ rights in Ghana and elsewhere.

Lawmakers in the West African nation are also pushing new legislation to increase colonial-era punishments for same-sex acts, with language criminalizing the “willful promotion, sponsorship, ⁠or support of LGBTQ+ activities” — similar to the language found in Senegal’s bill.

Anim-Appiah said Schaper was working to secure financing for the effort from “funders” he declined to name.

“I see Arthur as a colleague,” the Ghanian said. “We are all fighting a common ​battle.”  

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