It is your duty to take out flaws in anti-LGBTQ bill – Palmer-Buckle to Parliament

Catholic Church of Ghana endorse anti-LGBTQ+ bill

Palmer-Buckle describes homosexuality as an intrinsically disordered

Anti-LGBTQ+ currently before parliament of Ghana

The Metropolitan Archbishop for Cape Coast, Charles Gabriel Angela Palmer-Buckle has noted that it is the duty of parliament to ensure it fine-tunes the draft bill on Proper Human Rights and Ghanaian Family Values to achieve the purpose it is intended to.

Appearing before parliament’s Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee to defend the support of the Catholic Church for the controversial anti-LGBTQ+ bill, he noted that the Ghanaian catholic church in generality supports the legislation against LGBTQ+ rights.

He, however, noted that the onus lies on the legislative arm of government to ensure it works on the bill to properly answer the sovereign aspirations of the Ghanaian population.

“A bill has been brought to parliament and I think yours is to look at the bill and to see if there are excesses or flaws in it; pen them out. But the generality of the bill is what we are pursuing as to some of what we call dotting the i’s and crossing the t's, that is why you are lawmakers. We are not going to debate what the bill is supposed to have presented,” he said.

He emphasized the position of the catholic church on the anti-LGBTQ+ bill saying “the generality of the bill which we support strongly is that homosexual activity is intrinsically disordered. And therefore, if it is intrinsically disordered according to our Christian beliefs, our Islamic beliefs, our traditional religious beliefs, and so on and so forth, you, our lawmakers whom we have voted there; you have a responsibility to fashion the bill in such a way that you answer our sovereign aspirations. And I think that is a basis that we and you should not run away from, he stated.

The parliamentary committee is currently receiving presentations and memoranda from groups and individuals both in support and against the anti-LGBTQ+ bill.

The bill among other things seeks to criminalise homosexuality and same sex activities in Ghana. It also seeks to abolish advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights.

Fronted by a group of members of parliament and supported by some advocacy groups, the bill which has received wide public endorsement has also attracted concerns from some human rights groups who say it elicits hatred and discrimination against members of the LGBTQ+ community.