Kwesi Pratt Jnr, Managing Editor of Insight Newspaper
• The church has been an ardent supporter of the anti-LGBTQI+ bill
• Kwesi Pratt Jnr says the church has more pressing issues it must concern itself with
• A pro-LGBTQI+ group is pushing for the ‘unconstitutional’ bill to be dismissed
Veteran journalist and Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr, has addressed the Christian Council over its recent statement on the anti-gay bill before Parliament.
Pratt who described the communiqué as ‘interesting’ said he was surprised that of all the issues Ghana faced, the Council had specifically chosen to address the bill in a statement.
“The Christian Council communiqué is very interesting, exceedingly interesting. It is interesting that of all the problems of this country, this is what the Christian Council and the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council decided to speak about,” he said on Metro TV.
When the host of the Good Morning Ghana programme on which he was making his submission pointed that the statement addressed a number of issues, he submitted further that the Church needed to look within and fix issues therein as a start.
“Proper Human Sexual Rights and Family Values and so on, they should be talking to themselves, why; the abuse of children for sexual purposes and so on, where is it coming from?
“This pontification, where is it coming from? Go and look inside the church and see what you will find. You will be shocked at what you will find in the church,” he added.
Asked whether he expected the Council to be quiet on the issue, he went Biblical. “Is it not the same religious instruction which tells us to remove the speck in our eyes before we remove the log in our neighbour’s eye? It should apply to this discussion.”
He is worried that the Christian groups opposing the bill have so far failed to address the issues of Constitutional violations raised by a group of academicians and lawyers but rather defer to saying, “that this is what the Bible and let’s follow it and so on. Are there issues of constitutional violations or not?”
Ghana’s pro-gay collective
A group of 18 academicians and human rights defenders have voiced strong opposition to the bill before Parliament, which is seeking to extensively criminalize the activities of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, LGBTQ+.
The group submitted a memorandum to Parliament seeking that the bill be rejected because it was largely unconstitutional and infringed on basic human rights.
Members of Parliament behind the bill, led by Ningo Prampram MP Sam Nartey George, have rubbished the memorandum and asserted that the bill will be passed into law because it has the support of the wider Ghanaian populace.