JDM And Outgoing NADAA, Do Not Assent To This Anti-Democratic, Intolerant, Unjust, And Bigoted LGBTQ Bill

The supreme court of Ghana on December 18, 2024 paved the way for the President of Ghana to sign into law the anti-LGBTQ legislation considered among the most stringent in Africa. It stipulates jail terms of up to 3 years for engaging in same sex relations and up to 5 years for promoting or sponsoring LGBTQ activities. The Bill if passed into Law will be an affront to our democratic values. Members of the club of democratic nations do not pass discriminatory laws- it goes against the very principles of a true democratic state.

I do not live in a theocratic, one party, Islamic, African Value Centric State neither do I want to live in a country where the legitimate rights of minorities are trampled over because of their sexual orientation. I did not vote on 7^th December, 2024 to elect a Government for heterosexuals, blacks, women, men, albinos, physically challenged, Christians or Muslims. I exercised my franchise for an INCLUSIVE government, a government that embraces every citizen of Ghana. A government that respects the human rights of all its citizens including the gay community.

In sum the LGBTQ Bill in its current form must not be signed into law by either NADAA or JDM

It is claimed by many outside observers that the Bill has wide public support in Ghana - that is a fallacy, a complete fallacy. It may be the baby of some self-egotistic parliamentarians whose main aims were to gain political advantage and secure the votes of Ghanaians. It is a fact that majority of ordinary Ghanaians could not care a damn or a hoot about the political shenanigans and antics of so called Christion leaders, parliamentarians or the chattering classes.

It is also a fact that the majority of Ghanaians are consumed with their daily survival – the bread and butter issues to even think of what folks do or do not do in their bedrooms.

The chattering classes, clergy, parliamentarians and those clamouring for “gays to be strung on oak trees” have the luxury of clean safe water, food on the table, affordable housing, hygienic sanitation and quality education for their kids both home and abroad. Just last week, I stayed at ZENU, a suburb at Ashiaman and decided to undertake a snap survey of 100 ordinary folks residing at Zenu., Not a scientific sampling neither a proper “ Professor Sarpong Poll” just a sample of ordinary folks as they passed by the Star Oil Filling Station at Zenu, Ashiaman.

Our leaders will be surprised that not a single person had any concern with sharing his/her space with a gay person. Surprise, surprise, the 4 main concerns of almost 90% of those randomly surveyed cited their contempt with corrupt and bankrupt leaders; lack of sanitation and clean and safe water, affordable housing and prices of ordinary foodstuff at Zenu Market.

If our parliamentarians and the gay bashing elites, church leaders and opinion leaders are so sure of their mandate to “hang high” members of the gay community in Ghana let us have a REFERENDUM.

The silent minority are fed up with the so called “Christian Clergy” using selective texts and quotations from the Holy Scripture to roll over the genuine concerns of many of us. The Lord Jesus Christ never discriminated against the oppressed or sinners. Let us be clear on the issues at stake. My elected MP at Nkawie never informed any of his constituencies that he will support a LGBTQ Bill, neither did he held town hall meetings to canvass the views of his constituents.

On such an important and critical issue, which bothers on some of our brothers, sisters, cousins, aunties losing their lives through persecution there should have been a process of real “democratic participation not 275 lads/lassies sitting in a comfortable air conditioned building called parliament House and contemptuously deciding for the rest of us. NO

Are Ghanaians fully aware of the immense damage this brouhaha is doing to our international image and more importantly our economic fortunes? Yes, some of us would argue that as a sovereign nation we can enact any laws “the views and concerns of the rest of the International Community can go to hell” –laughable!

Since when did we become a full blown sovereign nation? Was it 1957? Ha-ha! A sovereign nation that depends on foreign aid! A sovereign nation that cannot feed its citizens! A sovereign nation that depends on donor countries to support its budget deficit! A sovereign nation where 80% of its young people will travel abroad to seek greener pastures given the chance! A sovereign nation that still uses English language as its mode of instruction and national language!

We delude ourselves if we think, believe and act as if we are an “independent nation”. 45 years ago, I was a young undergraduate at Keele University being taught by some brilliant Professors including Alan James, world expert on International Relations. His tutorial on sovereignty always began with the classic definition of “sovereignty” followed by the reality of what dependant countries sovereignty really meant.

It meant a country “just having defined geographical borders and the rituals and paraphernalia of a government”. Folks that is what 98% of African countries are- just the trappings of a Nation.

How many Ghanaians are aware that if this Bill is signed into law our country, my country (I have an equal stake) will lose $3.8bn in World Bank funding over the next 5-6 years.

As a country why are we trying to force the hand of the current President or the incoming President to sign such a draconian act into law? The incoming administration needs all the goodwill, funding and donor support that we can harness to implement the programmes in its manifesto. I plead with both Presidents not to sign.

Some of us in the diaspora are getting together to write, beg, cajole for part of our countries external debt to be written off. The incoming administration needs a reduction or cancellation of most of the bad bilateral and multilateral debts incurred by the last administration over the past 8 years. Please, do not tie our hands with this draconian LGBTQ Bill.

Indeed, Ghana’s constitution ensures respect for human dignity, protection of personal liberty, and the right to privacy for all. To be clear under section104 (1) (b) of Ghana’s criminal Offences Act 1960(Act 29), inherited from our colonial masters “whoever has unnatural carnal knowledge […] of a person sixteen years or older, with his consent, is guilty of misdemeanour”. Unnatural carnal knowledge is defined in section 104(1) (2) as “ sexual intercourse with a person in an unnatural manner or with an animal”

The supreme court judges have expanded the “unnatural manner” to include the use of sex toys. With their ruling the supreme court has expanded the interpretation of Section 10 (49)10b, apparently adopting language from the anti-LGBT Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian family values Bill, 2021,which specifically prohibits a person, in clause four , from engaging in any acts that undermine the proper human sexual rights and Ghanaian family values.

The anti-LGBT bill is brutal, harsh and unjust it must never become law in any democratic dispensation. Ghanaians are fond of comparing our draconian anti-LGBT laws to other countries in Africa whose leaders are anti-democratic, demagogues and tyrants. For God’s sake we are a democratic state not a banana republic or a one man show.

My greatest concern is with the phrase “Ghanaian Family Values”. Since when as a country, the citizens had the opportunity to draw up a Ghanaian Family Value (GFV) Charter? Why are we hiding behind this non-existent (GFV) to criminalise the homosexual community in Africa? Why don’t we use our energies, strength, talents to commit to the eradication of extreme poverty and ignorance on our continent? For heaven’s sake is there not enough socio economic developmental problems that needs attention? Do we need to spend our time, energies on an issue which has passed its sell by date?

Why, are we as a people bent on espousing the hollow, bankrupt, fanciful African identity to oppress the gay community – As we say in the ghetto - I can think far!

A society that is free of prejudice, hate and discrimination can and always unleashes the best in all of us. Ghana nay be depriving ourselves of a future Professor Alan Turing; John Maynard Keynes; Leonardo da Vinci; Sir Francis Bacon; Lana and Lilly Wachowski and Steve jobs.

Please, outgoing President Nana Addo Dankwah Akuffo Addo and incoming President John Dramani Mahama do not sign into law this bigoted LGBTQ Law.

I pray that my children and grandchildren will grow in a society that embraces ALL!

In conclusion, in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Martin Luther King said “I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but moral responsibility to obey just laws,” Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws”.

Kufuor, Appiah Danquah