When the Honourable Speaker of Parliament posed the question for those who opposed the anti-LGBTQ+ bill to rise up, none of them got up, meaning that none of them was against it.
This stand of the entire membership of the House has infuriated a number of persons, who are either practitioners or adherents of the LGBTQI+ with the explanation that the bill, in its current form, is unconstitutional because it flouts the fundamental human rights of Ghanaians (even though they do not mention those Ghanaians involved or the percentage thereof).
Fundament Human Rights
Since the main objection of most of the opponents to the bill is that it infringes upon the fundamental human rights of Ghanaians, the question to answer is:
“What is a fundamental human right? Another one is whether gayism, lesbianism and queer life qualify to be fundamental human rights?
Whatever is “fundamental” for anything is a necessary base or core for it. Fundamental human rights are therefore basic, rudimentary, elementary, primary, essential, necessary, critical and key, etc. to life.
This means that society will collapse if such rights of its members are not protected. It is for this reason that the right to a peaceful livelihood has to be protected at the expense of the State.
However, it does not include what the law regards as criminal like stealing or murdering someone else and many similar others just to earn our living or enjoy ourselves.
Crimes such as corruption, theft, suicide, etc. are committed by the blind side of law enforcement agents because they are concealed.
Those that come to light openly are dealt with in accordance with the law. Now, how fundamental to life is the practice of gayism, lesbianism and its queer style of life? Will the nation perish or crumble to a halt without its acceptance?
Freedom of Life
It is not against the laws of Ghana for any person to remain single and prevent the procreation agenda of God from being fulfilled through him or her.
It is, however, against both our laws and culture to enjoy the sweet sensation that goes with marriage through the “back door”.
People cannot get other peoples’ children to teach, medicate, entertain, etc. to earn their living without any contributions from them in bringing more of such “customers” in society.
It is wondered if society can be said to owe such group of persons any obligation to protect them by law.
They may practise their vocation just as thieves do and continue praying that they will remain concealed and not be caught by the law one day.
We should therefore be grateful to our Parliament for totally adopting the bill at its second reading and hopefully, is going to pass it soon.
Social Contract
No freedom in any State is absolute. The Human Rights concept is to provide just enough room for the citizen to enjoy his/her living.
Historians of Political Thought, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, J. J. Rousseau and others, teach us that before the emergence of the concept of the State, with all its liberties and security, etc., man was living a life that was “brutish and short”.
Coming together to form the State implied entering into a “social contract” by which each person voluntarily spared some of his or her personal liberties to enable him or her to enjoy the benefits of the State.
No one had the right to do whatever pleased him or her. Human rights cannot, therefore, be absolute.
It is only a basic privilege otherwise why do we prosecute persons who attempt to take their own lives or wee smokers whose brains are only theirs and not for anybody else?
Economic Influences
Discussing the bill at its Second Reading, a member raised the fact that gayism and lesbianism, etc. cannot be (and have not been) mentioned, let alone practised, in any of the Arabic Islamic states.
He went on, rightly, to say that the Westerners feel that because of economic vulnerability of African States, they can easily penetrate their ranks.
One of the solutions, in my opinion, lies in making our independence truly meaningful by thinking more of our economy than politics.
Parliament’s role here is therefore to help reduce too much politics in the country and concentrate more on the improvement of our economic development, no matter the party in power.
Another reason appears to be that we have not been successful in bargaining strongly for what we should accept.
We, in Africa, have been made to swallow anything from the Western countries including this gayism, lesbianism and its queer life.
For example, the Westerners have succeeded in getting the United Nations to extend the definition of “child labour” in cocoa growing areas to the age of 15 years at which, some of us were capable of securing some weeding contracts from farmers during our vacation periods to earn funds to sustain ourselves in schools rather than relying solely on our parents.
With their definition of “child labour”, our parents are being forced to lose the services of their children who need to be groomed to take over their farms when they cease to be effective due to ageing.
The Churches
Over-copying and too much “book long” are also other reasons we can cite. We tend to overlook the Biblical and “Koranic” injunctions and prefer doing what is an abomination to those religions.
It will not be surprising to discover that many of the opposing noises we hear are those of some people who call themselves Christians from whose Bible it is decreed in Leviticus chapter 18 (Good News Version): that “No man is to have sexual relations with another man; God hates” (vs, 22) and also that: “No man or woman is to have sexual relations with an animal; that perversion makes you ritually unclean” (vs. 23).
It goes on further to say (in verse 29) that: “You know that whoever does any of these disgusting things will no longer be considered one of God’s people”, and that God was quoted in an earlier verse that: He was “punishing the pagans who originally occupied the land that He was giving to the Israelites because they were doing all these disgusting things and made the land unclean” (verse 27).
Our churches should, therefore, hit very hard on these injunctions to save the people and, for that matter, the nation.
God bless our Homeland Ghana and make our Nation Great and Strong.
(The writer is the Registrar, Ghana Christian University College, Amrahia – Accra)