Ghanaians Are Talking, Homosexuals Are Mulling Over

Somebody wrote a riddle, “What exists in every corner of the world but is illegal in more than 70 countries?” I am sure the person was referring to homosexuality.

I had a girlfriend who liked me so much. The first time I had opportunity to play romance with her she resisted me from kissing her lips. “Why?” I enquired. “I don’t allow men to kiss my lips” she said without perhaps considering her words at first.

“Ok!” I agreed and proceeded with the romance immediately because that was a very voluptuous woman no man in his “manhood state” would let slip such a chance. In short, after the intense romance, I moved to enter her ‘palace’ but the lady would not permit. “Why??” I asked with my libido skyrocketing. “No, I hate to see sperms, I prefer you to licking me to fucking me” she said. In fact, I stopped the play and slept. I realised later that she was a bisexual.

Just recently a certain man approached a colleague journalist and me, and narrated an interesting story about his wife. He alleged his wife was into lesbianism and had virtually left him to stay with her lesbian mate. Thus, he wanted us to use our platforms to name and shame his wife so she could desist from the act. (We did not do it anyway).

Again just last two months, through one of the internet sites, I met a friend (a male) who lives in Ghana and working as a miner. Strangely, this person began calling me on phone almost every day and anytime he called he was using certain words which normally a man would use in flirting with a woman. Apparently the man was gay. In fact, only God knows what I did and he stopped calling me.

I have given all these instances to indicate that homosexuality and homosexuals are undoubtedly living with us in Ghana and going about their daily lives peacefully. But none of them has yet risen to fight for rights publicly.

Similarly in America, homosexuals were there doing their ‘thing’ quietly. It was a common knowledge that lesbians and gays existed in that country but they lived in silence, when all of a sudden in the 80s the world begun to hear a lot of noise condemning them. But here we are today homosexuality has been made legal in that part of the world.

What happened? Because whiles majority of Americans were talking, the homosexuals were mulling over - they were just listening and mapping up strategic moves to win the ‘battle’. As we speak, one of those religious leaders, who perhaps also did some of the talking, recently got jailed for refusing to bless a ‘marriage’ between two gays.

In my opinion the plenty talking in condemnation of homosexuality in the country will not help. It seriously is not the solution. There is need for a better way of handling the issue.

Homosexuals press for government-enforced approval of their activities and they use civil rights arguments, as happened in America, as an exploitation of good people’s sympathy.

A 1987 article in the Homosexual Magazine Guide outlined the strategy homosexuals should use to gain special protection—a strategy even more effective today, given a complicit media. And that was: in any campaign to win over the public, gays must be cast as victims in need of protection so that straights will be inclined by reflex to assume the role of protector.

“Our campaign should not demand direct support for homosexual practices, but should instead take anti-discrimination as its theme,” the article revealed.

Homosexual activists actively avoided public discussion of homosexual behaviour. In a 1989 book, “After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Hatred and Fear of Homosexuals in the 90s; a blueprint for homosexual political power”, the authors warned that: The public should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behaviour itself.

Homosexuals mulled over for a better approach and now they have won. Easily!

Yes, it may be true that the effort to redefine the family is really an effort to destroy the common definition of the concept, and that granting special legal protection to homosexual behavior would harm civil society by undermining the institutions of marriage and family.

Predictably, granting special legal protection to homosexuals would also take away rights from others. Parents could lose the right to protect their children from school-endorsed exposure to homosexuality and other various "sexual orientations." Landlords could be forced to rent to open homosexuals. In effect, good people of conscience will really lose the right to disagree in Ghana.

And that is why a very good strategic move is necessary; it is not enough to be warning or cautioning the government to resist homosexuality.

Of course what homosexuals were calling for (as in USA) was not equal protection but special protection despite legal and moral traditions, in many countries, regarding homosexuality as inimical to the "Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God" and a destruction to individuals and society. But will mere talking and condemning stop it?

Definitely, legalising homosexuality would mean that soon afterwards movements of men would begin to fight for rights to marry other men’s wives; armed robbers will also come out to advocate for a right to rob without any restrictions and we would expect that to be granted them. By that, would we say we are creating a democratic society or a chaotic society? A more strategic approach is needed.

In February 2012, President Mills reiterated the government's stance on LGBT rights, saying,

“Ghanaian societies frown on homosexuality ... if the people's interest is that we do not legalize homosexuality, I don't see how any responsible leader will decide to go against the wishes of his people… Nobody can say in Ghana we discriminate against homosexuality, there is no witch-hunting on homosexuality ... that is their own problem so we move on.”

However interestingly, Ghana’s Criminal Code (Amendment) Act, 2003, states in Section 104(1), “Whoever has unnatural carnal knowledge (a) of any person of the age of sixteen years or over without his consent shall be guilty of a first degree felony and (b) of any person of sixteen years or over with his consent is guilty of a misdemeanour.”

The Code seems unclear whether it is referring, in some part, to homosexuality or something else. Even if it is talking about homosexuality, the law says it is a “misdemeanour”. Meanwhile our religious gurus are chanting that homosexuality is a heinous act.

International Relations Expert, Dr. Vladimir Antwi-Danso remarked recently that Ghana needed clear laws on what constitutes legal marriage. He stressed that the lack of clear cut laws on what marriage is in Ghana could create confusion as far as issues of same-sex unions are concerned.

Rather than merely talking condemnation, religious leaders should think in these lines to block any way winnable by homosexuals.

We are here making noise trying to force words out of the President Mahama as to whether Ghana would legalise or not leglaise homosexuality and forgetting that Ghana also signed the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights.

The Declaration of Independence by countries declared that all people are guaranteed God-endowed inalienable rights; among them being life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

The international obligations of countries to respect the human rights of all persons, irrespective of sexual orientation and gender identity, were articulated in 2006 in the Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. The Principles were developed and adopted unanimously by a group of human rights experts.

Principle 2 of the obligation, "Rights to Equality and Non-Discrimination" affirms that everyone is entitled to enjoy all human rights without discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. And it specifically obligates countries to repeal criminal and other legal provisions that prohibit consensual sexual activity among people of the same sex who are over the age of consent, and ensure that an equal age of consent applies to both same-sex and different-sex sexual activity.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a statement to a High-Level Meeting on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity at the United Nations on 18^th December 2008, affirmed that the principle of universality admits no exception. It emphasised that Human rights truly are the birthright of all human beings and that for countries to continue to criminalise sexual relations between consenting adults of the same sex is defiance of established human rights law.

Ghana committed itself to those obligations and I do not expect Ghanaians to make weightless noise but to ensure that certain holes are sealed to make the probable fight for legalising homosexual activities distasteful for its proponents.

Once nations including Ghana have unanimously agreed to and ratified the universal declaration it behooves the states to secure the climate for implementation of the human rights law.

Those who are lesbian or gay are full and equal members of the human family, and are therefore entitled to be treated as such.

There are several ways to kill a cat…you cannot kill a cat with hullaballoo.

The writer is a journalist and Communications Specialist

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