A former Member of Parliament for Tamale Central, Inusah Fuseini, has indicated that the anti-gay bill currently before parliament could bring about more problems for Ghana than the positives it aims to achieve.
Explaining why this is so, the former MP said that in the real sense of things, Ghana does not recognise the activities of the LGBTQ+ community, and by law, such actions are not even discussed to merit the need for a law against it.
He added that it gets even more problematic because the new bill, if passed into law, would allow the state to pry into the extremely private aspects of people's lives.
He also raised concerns that a lot of state resources are being committed to this when they could have been redirected.
“We are not concerned with what goes on in the four walls of your bedroom. That is why when the bill came up first, I said what we are trying to do is to get the state to start looking into people's bedrooms of people. We are creating a police state…
“I mean, why would we spend state resources in prying into people’s private affairs? It is already an offense. It’s not there and we don’t recognise it. So, why don’t we recognise it? If you come out openly and profess that you are LGBTQ, we won’t mind you, but if you engage in it to the knowledge of the law enforcement agencies or responsible citizens, we will arrest you and send you to court… I think that the bill will introduce more problems for us… so, actually, we are back to 1984, George Orwell,” he explained.
Inusah Fuseini said this while speaking in an interview on Citi TV and monitored by GhanaWeb.
The current state of the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values, popularly known as the anti-gay bill, is that parliament has adopted the bill.
This followed heated debates on the floor of the House although there was a unanimous consensus from the Members of Parliament on both sides for its adoption.
According to Sam Nartey George, one of the lead proponents of the bill, the work that has been done on the bill so far is close to completion.
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Inusah Fuseini is a former Member of Parliament for Tamale Central