The Ningo-Prampram MP and one of the sponsors of the anti-LGBTQI Bill, Sam George, is not perturbed by the memorandum from 15 renowned legal, academicians and activists challenging the legislation that seeks to fully criminalise LGBTQI activities in Ghana.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, Mr George argued that the memo which said the bill was a slap in the face of Ghana’s constitution and democracy, lacked merit.
“I just wonder if it can stand the test of parliamentary scrutiny in terms of its substance,” he remarked.
Coming on the back of an Afrobarometer survey released by the Centre for Democratic Development showing that only 7 percent of Ghanaians are tolerant of persons of same-sex relationships, Mr. George also said arguments in the memo from the 15 persons would not be accepted by the public.
“I just wonder if it will pass the test of Ghana’s societal moral values and judgment when it is subjected to that test. It will fail woefully,” the MP insisted.
Reiterating the arguments of proponents of the Bill, Mr. George stressed that “the Bill is premised on the fact that sexual preference is not a human right in the 1992 constitution.”
“The constitution is clear that your rights are not absolute… there are limits to the rights and freedoms, and that is what they [critics of the Bill] fail to understand.”
The memo, which was signed by the likes of Professor Kofi Gyimah-Boadi, Dr. Rose Kutin-Mensah, Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh, Professor Audrey Gadzekpo, Professor Kwame KariKari, Akoto Ampaw, and Professor Raymond Atuguba, was in response to Parliament’s call for written memos on the anti-LGBTQI Bill.
They fear the Bill will flout the basic tenets of the constitution and undermine the dignity of LGBTQI Ghanaians.
They insisted that in countries that practice true democracy, supporters and opponents of every conceivable cause are given the freedom to associate and express their views.
The Bill, known as the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021, prescribes that people of the same sex who engage in sexual activity could spend up to 10 years in jail.
Support for the LGBTQ+ community would also be criminalised.
The Bill is currently before the Parliamentary Select Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs ahead of Parliament’s resumption later in October.
Source: Delali Adogla-Bessa
