Anti-LGBTQ+ bill seeks to protect next generation – Suhuyini

Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale North Alhassan Sayibu Suhuyini says the anti-LGBTQ+ bill seeks to ensure the protection of the younger generation from the act.

According to him, the bill seeks to prohibit people engaged in the act from introducing the younger generation in it, preventing the act from being enforced in the country’s school curricula as suggested earlier by the introduction of the Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE).

Contrary to the already existing criminal code of Ghana, which states that whoever has unnatural carnal knowledge of a person of the age of 16 years or over without his consent shall be guilty of first-degree felony and shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of not less than five years and not more than 25years, the bill will both prevent people from indulging in the act and promoting it in the society.

“Section 104 does not prohibit the promotion of LGBTQ. It talks about the act which in itself is debatable. But this one tells you that once you can’t promote it, you can’t even tell us to consider introducing it into our syllabus,” the lawmaker stated on 'New Day' on TV3 on Monday, July 26.

He added that the bill will also prevent LGBTQ+ from adopting children, who need to be protected.

“If there is any problem beyond your control, why you cannot recreate, you can’t produce. It is understandable for you to want to support society by adopting less privileged ones to give them the love that you have so much. But if you have made the decision not to continue life, we don’t think that you should because you will adopt these children and end up training them in the way that you are also practising. In fact, in this bill we have called for support and protection for them,” he added.

Alhaji Suhuyini opined that the issue of LGBTQ+ is a matter of choices and as such cannot be treated as a human right issue.

Once the laws of US does not support polygamy, its advocacy is prohibited in the jurisdiction.

“This is not a human right issue, this is in my view a life choice, it’s an issue of choices. People have made their choices. And so it’s like making a choice to be polygamous. We cannot go to the UK or the US and advocate polygamy as human right issue. Nobody is going to take you serious there because it’s a life choice that you make. And once their law do not support polygamy, you cannot go and say that it’s my human right that I must marry four wives and so your laws must be amended to accommodate that life choice.”