Malawi has halted the enforcement of laws that criminalize same-sex relationships after comments made by the country’s Justice Minister Ralph Kasambara.

According to Reuters, Kasambara, who is also the Attorney General, said he wanted to have a debate on the issue before parliament decided whether to keep the laws or not.

“If we continue arresting and prosecuting people based on the said laws and later such laws are found to be unconstitutional it would be an embarrassment to government,” Kasambara told Reuters.

(Editor’s note: The Rev. Canon Albert Ogle delivered these remarks today at the International AIDS Conference at a panel on “Religion, Culture and Law.” This will serve as his weekly RGOD2 column.)

The word religion is from the Latin word religio “to bind.” It is also sometimes described as law – a divine obligation, or sacred covenant which binds humanity with the mystery we call God.

Under Belize’s Criminal Code, gays face a penalty of up to 10 years’ imprisonment.

Section 53 states: “Every person who has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any person or animal shall be liable to imprisonment for ten years.”

Who is challenging the law?

Caleb Orozco is the lead claimant in the case against the Attorney General and the government along with other interested parties opposed to the criminalisation of homosexuality in Belize: the Commonwealth Lawyers Association, the International Commission of Jurists and the Human Dignity Trust.

We have been reporting for the past 10 days about Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality bill of 2009, which has been reintroduced in its original form into the Ugandan 9th Parliament.

This bill includes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” and harsh prison terms for homosexuals and lesbians in Uganda, where homosexuality is currently criminal under the less definitive law of “crimes against the natural order.”

Word has it that the death-penalty portion of the bill is being changed, but what they change is has yet to become public.