Anti-gay bill: I won’t allow Ghana to go extinct, says Bagbin
Ghana's LGBTQ bill seeks to provide for human sexual rights and Ghanaian family values while hoping to prohibit the activities of the LGBTQ+ community
The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has said he prefers to die than see the legalisation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) activities in the country, adding that he would not allow Ghana to go extinct.
Ghana’s LGBTQ bill seeks to provide for human sexual rights and Ghanaian family values while hoping to prohibit the activities of the LGBTQ+ community in the West African country. A person found guilty could face up to 10 years imprisonment if the bill is passed.
Addressing journalists at a press soirée in Tamale as part of Parliament of Ghana’s 30th anniversary celebration on the theme: “Thirty years of parliamentary democracy under the Fourth Republic; the journey thus far,” Bagbin said he is pro-life.
“For you all to participate in it, count me out of Ghana, because I will prefer to join my maker than to live. That is me. I am a Catholic and I am pro-life,” the Speaker said. “I will not do anything that will end the world, because God says the world is eternal, until He comes back, we cannot do that to end the world.”
“They have the repercussions in their country, and I can tell you that in the next 50 years, there will be no indigenous European in the world, in the next 20 years, the whole of France will be a Muslim country… why? Because they don’t produce to replace, the fertility rate in Europe now is 1:3, the first country to perish is Greece. it’s 1:1,” Bagbin added.
“Africa is still high, America is still high, and I can tell you, the forecast is that in the next 100 years the world will be a Muslim world,.. my colleague Christians I am a Catholic and I am saying it, I don’t want Ghana to be extinct, and I won’t allow anything to stop us from doing that,” Bagbin said.
Watch Alban Bagbin in the attached video clip below:
Background
Known as the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021, the anti-gay bill was read for the first time in Parliament on 3 August 2021. It has since been referred to the committee on constitutional, legal and parliamentary affairs for consideration and report.
The 36-page private member’s bill aims to provide for proper human sexual rights and Ghanaian family values by proscribing LGBTQ+ and related activities, as well as propaganda for, advocacy or promotion of LGBTTQQIAAP+ and related activities.
It will prohibit individuals from providing or participating in any form of surgical services to enable gender reassignment or create a sexual category other than the category a person was assigned at birth, except where the surgical procedure is to correct a biological anomaly, including intersex.
Those who contravene or undermine this provision are liable, on summary conviction, to a fine of no less than GHC9,000 and no more than GHC60,000, or a term of imprisonment of not less than three years and not more than five years, or both.
Moreover, the bill proscribes promotion and advocacy activities directed at children. Thus, anyone who uses the media and other electronic channels to produce, procure, market, broadcast, publish or distribute material or information directly or indirectly directed at a child, with intent to evoke the interest of children in an activity, could face a jail term of not less than six years and not more than ten.
The bill seeks besides to provide accused individuals with access to medical help or treatment, and to prohibit extrajudicial or inhumane treatment of people accused of offences under the bill.
Reporting by Fred Dzakpata in Accra
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