Ghana’s Parliament Seeks to Outlaw Homosexuality
The practice of homosexuality in Ghana is not novel. Men known in some Ghanaian communities as Kojo Besia are closet homosexuals against who parents warn their little ones. Lesbianism is also a sexual lifestyle practiced in Ghana among young females, and is commonplace in girls’ dormitories in high schools and other institutions as well as all-girls schools.
Movements against homosexuality have gained traction, following the International Planned Parenthood Association’s attempt to introduce Comprehensive Sex Education that included alternative practices into Ghanaian schools recently.
According to Ghana’s Minister of Information Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, a draft bill yet to be tabled before Parliament by some parliamentarians is in the offing. The proposed bill has sharply divided Ghanaians as Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram Sam George, a leading antigay advocate and one of the MPs who proposed the incoming bill continues to clash with opponents over the matter.
Amandla is revisiting the issue after several years when it (the issue) ignited similar sentiments. We cautioned then against the planned criminalization of gayism and we repeat our stance now. Is the proposed bill indeed necessary?
We question the relevance of a sexual lifestyle becoming a right, something that a huge section of the Western world frowns upon. Being a homosexual is not like being black or white.
We do not share the LGBTQ movement’s call for recognition and rights as if their behaviors are acceptable. We believe that the practice of homosexuality and its related others are absolutely repulsive. When did a sexual practice become a group identity? We do not share the perception that anyone is born homosexual. We believe that inasmuch as a born left-handed person could learn to use their right hand effectively, so do we believe that a homosexual could also decide to revert to be straight. After all, some of them practice both anal and vaginal sex with ease. As with anything else some of them might have adopted the lifestyle out of peer pressure and other deviant relationships. Surely, homosexuality is as controversial as it is unnatural, but is it actually a criminal act?
Homosexuality goes against the grain of decency but does it cross the lines of the law? Immoral it could be but does it deserve the attention it is receiving, particularly as it happens between two consenting adults in the privacy of their bedrooms? Already the existing law bequeathed from the colonial masters is as draconian as it could be. The proposed legislation, we believe, is heavily driven by emotions and would need a sound and reasonable examination at its various stages of consideration. Certainly, it must not be criminalized to the extent described in the proposed bill.
While we are at it, Ghana does not think it is anyone’s business how it conducts its affairs as far as homosexuality is concerned. Amandla is resentful of the Western world’s threats of pulling out aid to Ghana and other African countries that legislate homosexuality as a crime. That is their sovereign right. Gayism is not without its nemesis in the West. We are aware of extremists against the practice in some states like Utah in the United States who continue to receive Federal economic support. We are also aware of the violence meted out against known homosexuals in the US.
Ghana and Africa must not be scared of the aid clause in the West’s attitude, but the moral overtones that are missing from them. Ghana’s anti-gay responses are essentially ridden by its cultures and traditions that resent the immoral impact of homosexuality on its teeming youths and population in general.
We also take exception to the West’s discriminatory act of choosing to castigate only Africans while ignoring their friends in the Middle East. Why turn a blind eye to the excessive human rights abuses in Middle East but find it appropriate to patronize us in Africa? European and American claims of their Christian heritage are debunked and ridiculed by their selective attitudes towards anti-gayism in Africa. Their so-called Christian values condemn polygamy but turn around to promote homosexuality in Africa. The issue of homosexuality is fundamentally a social menace that needs to be tackled from several perspectives. The practice is as old as prostitution but prostitution is still with us. The reality is that incarceration cannot curb it.
Considering the youthful constituency mostly vulnerable, a law to criminalize it may not be the best approach. What do we do with adventurous teenagers who are ignorant of the law caught in the act? Do we throw them in jail?
Simply and pragmatically, homosexuality cannot be stopped, not by the proposed legislation. Appropriate counseling and holistic approach to sex education anchored upon effective traditional beliefs from the home to school and beyond is essential to root out that deviant behavior.
Emotions do not good and effective laws make. Pragmatism and good sense guided by human rights are the only ways to approach the guile practice of homosexuality.