The anti-LGBTQ+ bill is before Parliament
The Superintendent Minister of the Methodist Church Ghana, the Very Reverend Maxwell Kwadwo Obeng of Saint Andrews Society in Tema has called on Ghanaians to rescue and save LGBTQ practitioners from perishing.
He said, “Gay practice is inhuman, it is killing the youth of our generation, so there is need for loving, caring, and drawing closer to them rather than neglecting, ignoring and condemning”. According to him, through LGBTQ people were misled and got astray, and Biblically too LGBTQ is an abomination to God and He abhored it.
In an interview with Ghana News Agency in Tema on the ongoing debate on the LGBTQ Bill Rev. Obeng described the act as barbaric, disgusting, and unhygienic, “socially it is against our culture as Ghanaians and African. We don’t hate them, but their choice is wrong”.
He said health wise, it left them with all kinds of diseases; “even though advocates are talking about their rights, which they claim must be respected, the truth of the matter is that they don’t have rights, why? Because the practice is not human, it is simply an anti-human rights”.
He said the church was in support of the LGBTQ Bill before parliament “so we do pray that it is passed into law quickly which would help us as a country and as African”.
Rev. Obeng continued that some of the LGBTQ practitioners wanted to quit but felt threatened and as Christians, the church could build counselling centres in all the regions, to educate, support and engage them with the word of God.
“So now if someone says we should accept a strange way of life, which is an affront to our traditional norms and practices it defeats our very existence and cannot be accepted in any way or form.
“Morally, we came to learn that when somebody does something that is not good, the white man will say it is inhuman, which means human beings have standards, so now if they are asking us to legalize LGBTQ then it is inhuman, we cannot do it”.
Earlier this month, the Anti-LGBT Bill titled: “The Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021” was laid before Parliament and went through the first reading.
The Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Mr Andrew Amoako-Asiamah, who was presiding over the sitting of the House, referred the Bill to Parliament’s Committee for Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs for consideration.
The Members of Parliament (MP) who are sponsors of the Bill include: Mr Samuel George Nartey, MP for Ningo-Prampram; Mrs Della Sowah, MP for Kpando; Mr Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzra, MP for Ho West; and Mr Alhassan Suhuyini, MP for Tamale North.
The rest are; Ms Rita Odorley Sowah, MP for La Dadekotopon; Rev John Ntil Fordjour, MP for Assin-South, Mrs Helen Adjoa-Ntoso, MP for Karachi West, and Mr Rockson-Nelson Etse Dafeamekpor, MP for South Dayi.
The Bill, among others, seeks to strengthen and augment existing legislation on the country’s penal code which criminalizes consensual “unnatural carnal knowledge” with people over the age of 16 years under section 104 of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29) as amended by Act 646 of 2003.
The bill is expected to ensure that people who engage in homosexual activity could be fined or go to jail for between three to five years.
The Bill if passed into law would also make it a crime for any person to be identified as a lesbian, gay, transgender, transsexual, queer, pansexual or non-binary (LGBTQ ) and would be punishable by five years in prison.
Besides, advocating LGBTQ rights would also be illegal in if the bill is passed into law, with activists facing potential jail sentences of between five and 10 years.