Hitting The Ground Fumbling

Affail Monney

The President of the Ghana Journalists' Association (GJA), Mr. Affail Monney, appears to have hit the ground fumbling. Choosing a subject as dicey as homosexuality is not a wise decision to make, given the international appeal and complexity it has assumed over the past few years.

Above all, his direction to the media to mount a campaign against it, is tantamount to restricting the freedom of individuals and their sexual dispositions, which for us should not be entertained in a secular country whose constitution upholds the basic freedoms.

The homosexuality challenge is a minefield which the GJA, given its relative weak state, cannot manouvre unscathed. Indeed, the GJA had better restrict themselves to the varied governance deficiencies such as abuse of office and graft, to name a few, which have enveloped the country and given government a bad name fit for the image guillotine.

The foregone is part of the tall assignment which the GJA must tackle before venturing into the quicksand of homosexuality whose notes developing countries are already revising.

We find the newfound project of the Affail Monney-led GJA misplaced, laughable and ruefully unproductive and, therefore, destined to fail.

Directing the media to mount anti-gay campaign smacks of irresponsibility which we condemn totally; we wish it was not attempted at all, given the bad international press it has already attracted for the country and its weirdness in a modern world setting.

As for an omnibus application of what is becoming an international nuisance, the anti-gay stance being preached by the GJA President needs a rethink.

The gay issue is about freedom, a subject which when subjected to directives as the GJA is seeking to do, robs it of this inalienable right.

We are only standing up to be counted among cherishers of freedom in its totality and in defence of which we would leave no stone unturned.

The media, which should be the bastion of freedom and the first victim of the abuse of it in a dictatorship, would be acting paradoxically when it turns round to act against gay rights.

What the GJA President does not know is the extent of the worldwide phenomenon of gay rights and its unstoppable posture. What to do, therefore, and which the gentleman should be guarded by is the fact that what one cannot change let them live with it.

Mr. Monney recalled what, in his estimation, was a dose of blessing which came to Ghana when the late President John Evans Atta Mills stood up against homosexuality. We wonder how this blessing was identified and even measured in a country which suffered her worst moments in its post-independence history under the deceased and still counting.

In a country peopled by mostly poverty-stricken citizens, the media would be serving the interest of society better than such uncharted waters.