Moses Foh-Amoaning
Some prominent personalities appear to be jumping into the defence of those who have decided to practice homosexuality by advocating for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgender, Queer Intersex (LGBTQI+) rights.
They are insisting that there are “new rights” that ought to be granted for them to practice without any hindrance.
Public Outrage
A storm has been brewing in the country following the widely circulated news about the opening of a new office space for an LGBTQI in Accra to facilitate their activities.
The group, LGBTI+ Rights Ghana, on January 31, 2021 reportedly hosted a fundraiser to officially introduce and promote its office and community space and later, the European Union (EU) confirmed that it participated in the opening of the new office space for the LGBTQI rights group in Accra, reiterating its support for similar organisations.
In attendance at the fundraiser were some invited guests including the Australian High Commissioner, Gregory Andrews, the Danish Ambassador, Tom Nørring and some delegates from the EU.
In a post on Facebook, the EU in Ghana said, “A couple of weeks ago the EU in Ghana participated in the opening of the new community space of the @LGBTRightsGhana. Equality, tolerance and respect for each other are core values of the EU. The EU supports civil society organisations promoting #LGBTIQ rights #EU4LGBT.”
Executive Secretary of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Family Values, Moses Foh-Amoaning, who has been leading the campaign to stop the LGBT from gaining grounds in the country, later confirmed that the President ordered the closure of the LGBTI office and that had since been done by the security agencies.
Proponents
Prominent among those asking for the rights of such persons to be respected are Prof. H. Kwasi Prempeh, Executive Director of the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), and Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, immediate past NDC MP for Tamale Central and a former minister.
Prof. Prempeh in a social media post asked, “What exactly is the crime a gay person has committed or been convicted of? Or are we now being invited to criminalize the status or identity of being gay without any relationship to or proof of criminal conduct?”
He said “is an ‘LGBT Office’ or association per se illegal—they say it’s even a threat to ‘National Security’—merely because an existing law (with origins in colonial era legislation), which finds support among certain faith communities, proscribes so-called ‘unnatural carnal knowledge’?” adding, “Assuming, for the sake of argument, that such a law is deemed not unconstitutional by a contemporary court (apex courts in a number of common law jurisdictions like India and Belize have recently invalidated similiarly worded statutes), how exactly does one go from saying that such a law is not unconstitutional, to then saying that persons not otherwise engaged in the proscribed conduct may still not band together as an association even to advocate the repeal of such a law or to protest abusive use of such law to target and harass persons on the assumption that they may be predisposed to engage in such conduct (whatever that means)?”
He said “if I am free to advocate the abolition or repeal of a certain criminal statute, does my right to such advocacy, which is a form of permissible free speech, become unlawful merely because I have joined together or associated with another person or other persons to pursue that same advocacy and other related issues of mutual interest? Aren’t others just as free to band together in counter-advocacy in support of the status quo?”
Prof. Prempeh then added the caveat, “Please don’t come here with the pedestrian ‘Association of Rapists’ or ‘Association of Armed Robbers’ analogies being bandied about. I have heard them. They are as silly as they are inapposite. At the minimum, a ‘rapist’ is one who has committed or been convicted of the crime of rape, and an ‘armed robber’ one who has committed or been convicted of the crime of ‘armed robbery’.”
He asked “what will be the constitutional or jurisprudential basis for such a proposition? Can Rastafarians not advocate or band together to advocate the decriminalization of weed smoking? Or is being a Rastafarian by itself an illegal status?,” adding, “By the way, is it still a part of Ghanaian ‘culture’ for two men or two women to be seen in public holding hands? Or did that too just become some imported or exported ‘western’ cultural practice?”
“Any more legal arguments? Or have we now officially traded in our constitutional republic for a theocracy ruled by or at the pleasure of a conclave of self-appointed mullahs and high priests.”
Former MP
The former MP also waded into the debate and said gay rights are a matter, “new rights” emerging.
“As a Muslim, I cannot be seen to be practicing it but that is me as a Muslim, but as a lawyer, new rights are emerging and it is time that we recognize the existence of those new rights,” he said, adding, “As a Muslim, I cannot support the activities of the LGBTQI but if you ask me as a lawyer, I think that we are fighting a lost battle. If we want to create a right-based society, it means that if someone has the right to do something, you cannot prevent that person from doing it.”
“If you prevent the person, then you are not creating an open society. Even in our criminal code which we borrowed from our colonial masters, we have unnatural canal knowledge introduced by the British, but now that law is no longer in Britain, new ones were born. They said that that law violated some rights,” he explained.
The ex-MP also said that “Within the cultural context, many things happen. Let me say that homosexuality within our homes, it happens but it happens underground because the cultural set up does not accept or tolerate it and considers homosexuality an abominable act,” adding, “But as times go on, some cultural practices will give way. Once upon a time, people could not smoke wee in the whole world over but today we have found a way to make wee medicinal . . . in Ghana, Akpeteshie used to be a banned substance initially but as time went on, the people accepted it. As new knowledge begins to emerge people will begin to understand.”
“I have read a lot of books about homosexuality, queerness, lesbianism and so on. It is not something that started recently; it is a stone-age issue that can be traced in the Old Testament, but there has been a determined effort to keep society cohesive and to ensure that the God-right to multiply is not hindered. There have always been those practices, even in pre-historic time,” he stated.
By Ernest Kofi Adu