Dr Amoako Baah, a former head of the Political Science Department at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), has appealed to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo not to sign the anti-LGBT+ Bill into law.

Dr Baah argues that the Bill infringes on individual rights and freedoms. He criticized the drafters for overlooking these concerns.

Expressing his stance during an interview on Neat FM on March 1, 2024, he emphasized that the proponents failed to consider the potential infringements on fundamental rights such as freedom of speech, opinion and association.

"The Bill is not good, not because I support LGBT, but because of how they wrote the Bill. Those who wrote the Bill, I wonder what they learned to be able to write that Bill.

"We have freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom of association, and there is more freedom, but based on how those people wrote the bill, they have infringed upon all these freedoms," he said.

He questioned the morality of punishing individuals based on religious doctrines, stating, "If God says he doesn't want homosexuals, fine, I don't also support them, but has God come down to kill someone? So why would you decide that someone should be arrested or be punished?

"Nana Addo shouldn't sign it; if they like, they should call him gay; it won't matter because those who are intellectuals would know that there are issues with the bill," he asserted.

Dr Baah questioned whether the Bill could lead to the criminalization of certain sexual practices within heterosexual marriages.

He specifically mentioned anal sex between married couples, arguing that if the Bill addressed the ways people engage in sexual activities, a significant number of people could face arrest and prosecution.

"Will the government be able to go to somebody's bedroom to find out what kind of sex he is having?

"Right to privacy has been infringed; if your child is a homosexual and you don't report him, that is also a sin. Why? Which kind of law is written like this?

"Is it because men are having anal sex with women or what? And if that is it, I can tell you that a lot of men have anal sex with their wives, and I know what I am talking about; a lot of men do that. So are we going to arrest such people also, or what?" he added.



AM/SARA

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