Merely saying you are a Christian and your faith does not support homosexuality and same-sex marriages IS NOT THE SAME as stating your exact position on whether or not the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights And Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021 unofficially known as the anti-LGBT Bill should be passed into law in its current state and form.

The two are not the same and for Ghana’s former president John Mahama, now turned aspiring president, to have said his faith as a practising Christian aligns with his stance against LGBT is to merely repeat what both proponents and opponents of the Bill (in its current form) have been saying.

The LGBT debate in Ghana currently is not about whether or not same-sex marriages should be accepted. It is already a foregone conclusion that Ghana would not accept such a far-fetched if not a bizarre suggestion.

Many Ghanaians have been deceived and misinformed to believe that the debate is between those who are for LGBT and those who are against LGBT and that opposing the Bill in its current form means lending support for same-sex marriages or LGBT.

Because of this misinformation, persons who openly declare that stance against LGBT are wrongly understood to mean they are for the passage of the Bill in its current form and that is the interpretation that has been given to what the former President said about LGBT last Wednesday during a breakfast meeting with the clergy:

“My faith is against LGBTQ. I belong to the Assemblies of God Church. The faith I have does not allow a man to marry a man or a woman to marry a woman.

“The Bill in Parliament is not yet passed but I think the Government has indicated that if it gets passed, the President would not sign it into law because what the Attorney General is saying is that a Private Member’s motion should not bring any cost on the State so based on that technicality, the President would not sign.

“Between Parliament and the Executive, they should look at this matter. If they would look at the Bill and see where it pits a charge on the Government and remove that aspect, then it opens the way for the President to be happy to sign the agreement.

“But I personally believe that a man is a man and a woman is a woman. I do not believe that a person should wake up and say he feels like a woman but was born as a man so wants to change it to become a woman. No. Nature created us man and woman and he knew what he was doing when he created us like that so if you ask me, my personal faith is against it.”

Just like John Mahama, most faiths in Ghana do not subscribe to LGBT but it does not warrant the passage of a Bill in an attempt to criminalize all and every form of LGBT, which strays into clear human rights violations that affect even non-LGBT persons.

Is former President John Mahama saying to the clergy leaders he met last Wednesday that his friend, Andrew Solomon the LGBT activist, should be arrested and jailed whenever he visits Ghana and holds himself out in public as being gay?

That is what the Bill in its current form seeks to do to LGBT persons who openly identify themselves as such. Even allies of LGBT persons would get jailed.

This Bill, in its current form, further seeks to jail journalists, media owners, and all persons who write editorial opinions perceived to be pro-LGBT.

The Bill, in its current form, seeks to pass laws to make it a criminal offence to show affection, support or to give any form of assistance to persons who engage in consensual same-sex even if they are consenting adults who do so in private.

If it is strictly about passing a law to forbid same-sex marriages, introducing children into LGBT or any form of sexual activity, or forcing anyone into LGBT, no one would have raised any human rights issues.

But certainly, a Bill that seeks to jail even persons who have sex toys such as vibrators and dildos is certainly over-stretching its boundaries and the excesses need to be looked at before it gets passed into Law.

These outrageous aspects of the Bill in its current form are the actual debate that has delayed it in Parliament and not about President Akufo-Addo or someone in Government saying a signature would not be appended even if it gets passed by Parliament.