• Mikki Osei Berko kicks against homosexuality
• Actor throws weight behind anti-LGBTQ+ bill
• Arguments for and against anti-LGBTQ+ bill continue unabated
As some personalities fight against the private member bill that seeks to criminalise same-sex relationships in Ghana, veteran actor Mikki Osei Berko has suggested the argument that people have the right to decide their sexuality is flawed.
“I don’t see the rights there is in life, to use exits as entries”, he told JoyNews. “I don’t think that we should be too wise and too free to start using some of the entries as exits, and exits as entries. So, I look forward to people who are craving for that, to start feeding themselves through their noses.”
Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram, Sam Nartey George and some colleagues are pushing for the passage of the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021 which will among others, make individuals of the same sex who engage in sexual intercourse “liable on summary conviction to a fine of not less than seven hundred and fifty penalty units and not more than five thousand penalty units, or to a term of imprisonment of not less than three years and not more than five years or both.”
Persons who engage in activities that “promote, support, express sympathy for or call for a change of public opinion towards an act prohibited under the Bill,” are liable on summary conviction to a term of imprisonment of not less than five years or not more than ten years.
The bill has evoked controversy with some eighteen renowned legal, academic and civil society professionals, including Professor Kofi Gyimah-Boadi, Dr. Rose Kutin-Mensah, Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh, Professor Audrey Gadzekpo, Professor Kwame KariKari, Akoto Ampaw and Professor Raymond Atuguba urging the Parliamentary Select Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs to reject it and “not to create a society where the state through legislation imposes one view of ‘proper human sexual rights’.”
In an 18-page document, they argued that the bill which is against activities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) is an “impermissible invasion of the inviolability of human dignity”.
But Mikki Osei Berko asserted that homosexuality is not a fundamental human right.
“We should go back and learn from animals because I am trying to find out whether female chicken will make love together or the male, once I find out that they are able to do that then I will believe that it’s God’s own program”, Mikki Osei Berko said.
“But once they are not doing that then I am beginning to believe that human beings are becoming too wise”, he added.
