No amount of pressure will change our stance to legalize homosexuality- MP

The Member of Parliament for Manhyia North Hon Collins Owusu Amankwa has observed that Ghana’s culture and family life system cannot support the legalization of homosexuality in any form or shape adding that no amount of pressure will change their stance.

Speaking to OTECNEWS’ Piesie Lardi at Manhyia Place during the Asatehemaa’s Funeral rites, Hon Owusu Amankwa stressed that homosexuality continues to be unacceptable because there is no “cultural orientation” that supports it in Ghana.

Asked about the Human rights issues being championed by some Activists, “ the Manhyia North Legislator in a sharp rebuttal said, Homosexuality is not only a human right issue.

‘’It is also a human existence and survival issue. It threatens Africa’s social protection which is embedded in family and children. Elsewhere in Europe, marriage is between two young people who think they love each other. They can get married before they even introduce themselves to their parents. Our part of the world you need two families to come together for marriage to become possible’’, he said.

The debate over the decriminalization and the legalization of same in Ghana has been rekindled by President Akufo-Addo’s recent interview on Aljazeera.

Akufo-Addo, when asked about Ghana’s stance on homosexuality in the face of its acclaimed open democracy said that legalizing the practice or decriminalizing it, was not on the country’s agenda.

He, however, indicated that agitations from gay rights groups are “bound to happen” and could provoke a national discussion on the matter in the future.

Asked by the interviewer about why Ghana’s laws still criminalise homosexuality, Nana Akufo-Addo said: “This is a socio-cultural issue, if you like,” adding: “I don’t believe that in Ghana, so far, a sufficiently strong coalition has emerged which is having that impact on public opinion that will say: ‘Change it [the law], let’s then have a new paradigm in Ghana”.

The President, however, said: “I think that it is something that is bound to happen”.

Asked by the interviewer: “What’s going to provoke it, what’s going to make it happen?” President Akufo-Addo said: “Oh, like elsewhere in the world, the activities of individuals [and] groups”.

Homosexuality as a crime

Under Ghanaian criminal law, same-sex sexual activity is illegal, owing to the criminal code’s stance on unnatural carnal knowledge.

Persons found to have fallen foul of this law are liable to a prison term ranging from five years to 25 years, per Section 104 of the Criminal Code (Amendment) Act, 2003.

Ghana is one of 75 countries around the world where it is still illegal to be a homosexual.

There have been pockets of instances where perceived homosexuals have been attacked by those against the practice either on the basis of religion or culture.

Scottish MPs hit hard at Mahama over gay rights

In 2016, some Members of the Scottish Parliament called on their government to confront then President John Mahama on Ghana’s alleged abuses of homosexuals.

The President then had been invited to address (MPs) in the Scottish Parliament, but some opposition MPs said the invitation undermined the safety of the Scottish Parliament for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

Speaker of Parliament, Prof Mike Oquaye on gay right

In July 2017, the Speaker of Parliament, Prof Mike Oquaye, warned that Ghana would not countenance the aggressive push by external forces to accept acts such as homosexuality and bestiality.

His caution followed a courtesy call by Amnesty International, where they made demands including a scrapping of the death penalty from the statute books.

Source: otecfmghana.com/ Piesie Lardi