Founder of the Atta Mills Memorial Institute, Koku Anyidoho has dispelled claims that a hate campaign is being waged against minority groups in Ghana.
The former Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) said in a tweet on Tuesday October 12 that “Nobody has waged a hate campaign against any Minority Group in Ghana.”
“The Minority Group should also not wage a hate campaign against the Majority Group.”
His comments come after there have been claims that the anti-gay bill which is currently before Ghana’s parliament and sponsored by Ningo Prampram lawmaker Samuel Nartey George and some of his colleague legislators, is promoting hate for homosexual minority groups in Ghana.
For instance, a private legal practitioner Mr Akoto Ampaw who is against the bill said the way and manner the bill has been designed indicates the extremism of the mind frame that produced it.
“The fact that the bill goes to that extent of criminalizing somebody who is an intersex or criminalizing somebody who is asexual, this is a meaningless project , shows the extremism of the mind frame that produced that bill,” he said on TV3’s Key Points with Dzifa Bampoh on Saturday October 9.
A professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, Kwame Karikari, also said the bill is dangerous because it seeks to promote hate for homosexuals in the country.
In the view of Prof Karikari, gays and lesbians are human beings and deserve to be respected and protected as any other person.
To that end, he said, any law that seeks to create problems for this group should be rejected.
He said this while speaking on the First Take with Dzifa Bampoh on 3FM on Monday October 4.
The former Director General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) said he and a few of his colleagues who are fighting for the rights of homosexuals to be respected in Ghana will hold a public forum to debate this subject.
“Hopefully, the media may also want to pick up the debate, debate them so that the public will instantly get to know the views that we hold and the views that the proponents of what we considered to be a dangerous bill, also hold.
“We think we live in a democracy and we must be grateful to God that we live in a democracy so that whatever parliament, the executive or any branch of government does, it will be openly discussed and people can therefore take their decisions and then the lawmakers and the executives can also take some wisdom from the public debate.
“We know that most societies have prejudice against homosexuality, lesbianism and these other social practices. We are not at all surprised that the overwhelming majority have prejudiced or even hate these small minority of people in society. We have no problem with that. What we are saying is this.
“This law is setting up the minority up. Our constitution does not discriminate about humans beings unless the proponents of this bill, unless the 95 per cent who say they don’t like homosexuality, we want them to say that homosexuals, lesbians are not human beings. Are they human beings or are they not human beings?
“If they are human beings then we think that they are protected by the constitution so any law that is made to arouse, promote engineer and mobilize hate against that minority is against the rights of those minority people and should not be passed.”
The bill seeking to criminalise homosexuality in Ghana has been laid in Parliament.
The Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill was laid in the House on Monday, August 2 and read for the first time.
Reading for the first time, a clerk in the legislative assembly stated that the Bill proscribes lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) and other related activities and propaganda or advocacy and promotion for same.
It also came to light that it supports protection for children and persons who are victims or accused of homosexuality.
Second Deputy Speaker Andrew Asiamah Amoako referred the Bill to the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Committee for consideration.
“For the first time, it is referred to the Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs for consideration and report,” Mr Asiamah Amoako, who is also the MP for Fomena, directed.
The controversial bill has already divided opinion in the Ghanaian public discourse.
While some, particularly the religious and traditional groupings, have supported the Bill and hopeful of its passing, others say it could incur the wrath of the international community against Ghana.