Deputy Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin has said that he supports the non-criminalization of homosexuality, the position of the Christian denomination he belongs to, the Catholic Church.
Personally, he said, he does not think that somebody claiming to be a lesbian or gay should go to jail.
Speaking in an interview on Accra-based TV3, the Effutu lawmaker said “I am a Catholic and the position of the Catholic church is very clear, … and I don’t think that what the church has said I should hold a contrary view to it.
“The church says that by the culture of Africans, we are against same-sex marriage, but it is also against criminalizing somebody who has that sexual orientation. I am a catholic, I don’t hold a contrary view to what the Catholic church is saying. The Catholic Church is saying it will be wrong to criminalize somebody’s sexual orientation and so be it. Personally, I don’t think that somebody claiming to be a lesbian or gay should go to jail, by virtue of that,” he said.
His comments come after the chancellor of the Pontifical Academies of Sciences, Cardinal Peter Turkson said that there is no need to criminalise homosexuality.
Cardinal Peter Turkson speaking on BBC’s Hardtalk programme, said persons with gay and lesbian tendencies have committed no crime.
The interview was held against the background that Ghana‘s Parliament is currently considering the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021 that if passed, will prohibit acts of homosexuality.
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