Anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI+) campaigner, Moses Fo-Amoaning, is urging Ghana to chart and follow its own pathway, ignoring threats that the country is going to be refused foreign donor assistance if it should go ahead to criminalize LGBTQI+ practice and advocacy.
Ghanaians, he says, would even be better off, when they are put on the “list of people considered unacceptable by demons and devils”. He adds that claims that the nation is going to lose foreign development aid are just ruse – a strategy to hoodwink the people into accepting LGBTQI+ and this is something everybody needs to be smart to see through.
This comes as parliament readies to consider the 150 memoranda it has received from various interest groups and individuals on the “proper human sexual rights and Ghanaian family values bill”, which is seeking to criminalize the LGBTQI+ practice and advocacy.
Parliament is expected to spend not less than 15 weeks to thoroughly dissect the total of 150 memoranda on the anti-LGBTQI+.
The parliamentary committee on the “proper human sexual rights and Ghanaian family values bill”, begging this week, would meet with and listen to various interest groups that have sent memoranda.
According to the Deputy Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo Markin, 10 of the memoranda would be dealt with, every week.
He said after all the 150 had been exhaustively looked at, the committee would prepare its report and send it to the House and then take it from there.
The debate over whether to criminalize or not criminalize LGBTQI+ practice has generated a lot public interest, with some Christian leaders, threatening to influence members of their congregation to vote down politicians, who would stand in the way of the bill.
They see same-sex marriage as evil and want parliament to move quickly to criminalize its practice or advocacy.
A group of top Ghanaian lawyers, respected scholars and professionals, hold an entirely different position and are pushing to get the anti-LGBTQI+ bill shot down.
They argue that the bill is backward and a rights violation.
Mr. Akoto Ampaw, a well-respected senior lawyer and one of the people at the forefront of the campaign to persuade parliament to throw out the bill, says they are not in support of same sex-marriage, what they do want to see is the protection of the fundamental human rights of everybody.
He says, the fact that majority of Ghanaians are against same-sex marriage is not a justification to criminalize the minority.
Both sides on the aisle in parliament – the majority and the minority have publicly signaled support for the anti-LGBTQI+ bill.
The Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has said that the MPs would not disappoint the people they were representing.
The Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, expressed strong backing and said they would be insisting on clause by clause voting on the bill.
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