Given the corrosive effects of bribery and corruption being perpetrated by remorseless public officials, the imposition of death sentences is of heightened importance than the criminalisation of the act, LGBTQI+.

To be quite honest, I am still trying to get my head around how the seemingly benign activities of LGBTQI+ could impact negatively on society more than the revoltingly cyclical corrupt practices of some criminally-minded politicians and other public servants.

Why must we waste our energies on grownups who have volitionally chosen to go contrary to the generally accepted way of making love?

Much as we may dislike the act of LGBTQI+, it is not quite right that every homosexual is a criminal, so we cannot and must not treat them like hardened criminals.

This is the reason why I am in acquiescence with Cardinal Turkson for wisely stressing that in so far as we are not ready to decriminalise the act of homosexuality, we should not criminalise it.

I will venture to stress that if we are serious about protecting religious and societal norms, we should first of all focus on our shameless public officials and their corrupt practices.

My dear reader, although corruption is a serious economic, social, political, and moral impediment to nation-building, our corrupt officials are bent on siphoning our scarce resources to the detriment of the poor and disadvantaged Ghanaians.

"When public money is stolen for private gain, it means fewer resources to build schools, hospitals, roads, and water treatment facilities. When foreign aid is diverted into private bank accounts, major infrastructure projects come to a halt".

“Corruption enables fake or substandard medicines to be dumped on the market, and hazardous waste to be dumped in landfill sites and oceans. The vulnerable suffer first and worst (Ban Ki-moon, 2009)".

I have always held a firm and unadulterated conviction that a fantastically corrupt public servant is no less a human rights abuser than the weirdo Adolf Hitler.

This is because while the enigmatic Adolf Hitler went into a conniption fit and barbarically exterminated innocent people with lethal chemicals and sophisticated weapons, a contemporary corrupt public servant is disgustingly bent on suffocating innocent citizens through wanton bribery and corruption.

As a result, the innocent citizens would often end up facing untold economic hardships, starvation, depression, emotional labour, and squalor which send them to their early graves.

I deliberately kept mute over Ghana’s anti-LGBTI bill until I chanced on a thought-provoking article(see: Will Akufo-Addo government jail journalists over LGBT reportage?- ghanaweb.com, 30/08/2023).

I felt enormous torment upon reading that the anti-LGBTI bill, when passed, would not only target gay people, but also the allies, journalists, media owners who act as the proponents, and more ridiculously, house owners for sheltering alleged homosexuals. How bizarre?

In effect, the said bill, when passed, would not only criminalise the benign praxes of LGBTI people, the freedoms and rights of heterosexuals and other innocent people would be capriciously curtailed. How unfortunate?

To be quite honest, it is boundlessly unconscionable to slap a ten-year jail sentence on a journalist or a human rights ideologue for defending the inalienable rights of homosexuals.

Well, I am cognisant of the fact that the 1992 Constitution of Ghana criminalises the practice of homosexuality.

If that were to be the case, how can any elected politician or an erudite practitioner exert all his/her precious time and energy on yet another law over bread and butter-issues?

I cannot for the life of me, remit my fury in condemnation over the way and manner the supposedly morally upright Ghanaians are gleefully condemning the practice of the so-called evil of our time-homosexuality.

Whenever I hear all sorts of people, ranging from pastors, prophets, soothsayers, and black magicians to fetish priests, ventilating their arousing disgust over the so-called evil of homosexuality, the question I often ask myself is: is the practice of homosexuality the only sin the almighty God abhors?

The fact, however, remains that over the years we have been living with gays and lesbians in our communities.

So whether we like it or not, gays and lesbians will continue to practice in secrecy until thy kingdom comes. If, indeed, the act of homosexuality is the greatest sin against God, they will account to their creator themselves one day, but not you and me.

I would therefore like to submit that since Ghana’s Constitution already frowns on the praxes of ‘gayism and lesbianism’, our elected Members of Parliament must rather think outside the box and help solve the pressing issues that affect the lives of the ordinary Ghanaian.

Kwaku Badu is a human rights ideologue and the proud Star Award winner of the
GhanaWeb’s 2021 Maiden Excellence Award.