• The Bill is expected to be debated when Parliament resumes later this month
• An NPP MP is calling for cool heads as MPs debate the controversial bill
Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi, Member of Parliament for the Asante-Akim Central Constituency has explained that the current anti-Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, LGBTQ+ Bill, before Parliament is not about gays asking for recognition of their rights.
He says it is more about a group of eight MPs promoting a bill that is seeking to criminalize the activities of the LGBTQ+ community.
Anyimadu-Antwi, who is also the chairman of Parliament's Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee, said his committee is mandated with generally examining all questions relating to Constitutional and Parliamentary issues.
"Let me take this opportunity to explain to the public what the bill is about, the bill is not the gays that are asking for a right. Rather it is a group of Parliamentarians that had come together to say that let us make a law to actually cripple the gay (community) in the country.
"In other countries, you would see or hear from the minority group, which is the LGBTQ+ group coming out to say we have a right, give to us. No, that is not what is having here.
"What we are having here is that, before they get there, let’s cripple them, let’s criminalize them, let’s make sure that anybody who engages in any of these acts must be punished," he said on Joy News' The Probe show which aired on Sunday, October 17.
He stated that the highest sentence regime in the bill was about five years adding that it was such details and other considerations that his committee was to consider having received over 120 memos arguing for and against the Bill.
He said the committee will look at the law and apply necessary provisions explaining further that the Bill is currently a long way from passage.
The Bill has passed the first of three reading stages in the plenary and will have to scale the consideration stage to become law.
Promoters of the anti-LGBTQ+ Bill
The LGBTQ+ Bill before Parliament is titled: "The Promotion of Proper Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021." It is a Private Members' Bill sponsored by a bipartisan group of lawmakers.
The eight MPs who sponsored the Bill are Sam Nartey George (MP, Ningo Prampram), Emmanuel Bedzrah (MP, Ho West) Della Adjoa Sowah (MP, Kpando), John Ntim Fordjour (MP, Assin South) – the sole NPP MP sponsoring the Bill.
The remaining sponsors are Alhassan Sayibu Suhuyini (MP, Tamale North), Helen Adjoa Ntoso (MP, Krachi West), Rita Naa Odoley Sowah (MP, La Dadekotopon) and Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor (MP, South Dayi).
Ghana’s pro-gay collective
A group of 18 academicians and human rights defenders have voiced strong opposition to the bill before Parliament, which is seeking to extensively criminalize the activities of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, LGBTQ+.
The group submitted a memorandum to Parliament seeking that the bill be rejected because it was largely unconstitutional and infringed on basic human rights.
Members of Parliament behind the bill, led by Ningo Prampram MP Sam Nartey George, have rubbished the memorandum and asserted that the bill will be passed into law because it has the support of the wider Ghanaian populace.
Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi, NPP MP for Asante-Akim Central