By Franklin ASARE-DONKOH
Advocates for Christ (A4C)–Ghana, a Nonpartisan and Non-Governmental Christian professionals Organisation has admonished government officials not to buy into the intellectual dishonesty being propagated that the United Nations (UN) has proclaimed LGBTQ+ sexual lifestyles, practises, or preferences as rights.
According to the group, no such rights have been legally determined by the UN.
Addressing the media in Accra, the the Chairman- A4C Ghana Mr. Edem Senanu also cautioned Ghanaians not to be deceived by some western powers that there is a fundamental, innate, inherent, inalienable, vital, essential, and indispensable about these sexual choices, preferences, or lifestyles.
“There is nothing fundamental: innate, inherent, inalienable, vital, essential, indispensable about these sexual CHOICES, preferences or lifestyles,” he reiterated.
Mr. Senanu explained further that there is also no scientific basis for LGBTQ orientations, practices. Consequently, no issues of equality arise anywhere or at anytime. He added.
Below is an edited statement:
PRESS STATEMENT
PROPER HUMAN SEXUAL RIGHTS & GHANAIAN FAMILY VALUES BILL ATTENTION: H.E. NANA ADDO DANKWA AKUFO-ADDO
Over the course of this week, Ghanaians have been serenaded with misleading information on Human Rights and Equality, emanating from the visit of Her Excellency the Vice-President of the USA, her public engagement with our
President, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo and in the context of the Proper Human Sexual Rights & Ghanaian Family Values Bill currently before Parliament.
This Press Conference is being called to set the records straight and to bring to the attention of our President, Leaders and representatives of Government, as well as the good citizens of this nation, key legal, socio-cultural, medical and scientific facts that should stay paramount on our minds as we continue to engage on these matters:
LEGAL
1. The UN General Assembly has never in its 78 years of existence determined that anything such as LGBTQ sexual rights exist. Nowhere can such an authoritative decision of the 193 member states be found. Describing these “sexual practices” as “rights” is therefore misleading and
simply intellectually dishonest. [Decision-making by the General Assembly follows a cycle: debate, negotiation, decision, implementation and reporting. When the General Assembly goes through the processes of decision-making and comes to a consensus or unanimous decision, though member states may not be bound, it carries the moral authority of the world community. No such event has taken place to legitimize any claims of duty on Ghana to recognize such rights].
Indeed, when we have the resolution number, date and report proceedings it will then provide a basis for our Parliament to consider whether we want to ratify this.
1
2. LGBTQ practices can definitely not be called fundamental rights because FUNDAMENTAL human rights must be essential, vital, inherent and INDISPENSABLE for all. These sexual preferences/choices/practices of LGBTQ persons are certainly NOT indispensable for all humanity, regions or all countries and they are clearly not shared by over 80% of Africans.
3. The issue of “Equality” therefore does not arise under these circumstances, because there ought to be a specific acknowledged “Right” in question before the notion of “Equality” of different parties to that right becomes debatable. Ghana is already a country of equal rights
for everyone, and just like every other civilized country in the world not every choice or practice becomes a right under the law only because someone desires it to be so.
No such LGBTQI “rights” exist and therefore no such issues of “equality” arise.
SOCIO-CULTURAL
1. According to the results of the recent “2021” Afrobarometer survey report, 93% of Ghanaians are opposed to homosexuality1, and this is well above the continental (Africa) average of 80%, which in itself is high and speaks volumes about the continental position.
2. This position taken by Ghanaians is also supported by the July 2018 findings of the ACILA survey on Popular Attitudes on LGBTQIA+ in Ghana, where 87% of Ghanaians were reported as being against LGBTI persons holding public meetings to discuss LGBTI issues.
3. This posture “toward people in same-sex relationships is pervasive
across age groups, religious affiliations, and urban as well as rural locations”2.
These research results therefore represent a total rejection of homosexuality by the vast majority of Ghanaians, from every walk of life.
1 Osse, L. (2021). Ghanaians are United and Hospitable but Intolerant Toward Same-Sex Relationships. Afrobarometer Dispatch No. 461.
2 Ibid
MEDICAL & SCIENTIFIC
1. After studying 0.5 million citizens of the earth, (Ganna et al, 2019) concluded, as have other scientists, that there is no evidence for any gay genes. If there is no gay gene, then no one can claim that they were born that way and therefore, there is no unique case for such a thing as “a fundamental right to be gay.” Consequently, the over 46 terms (and counting) that describe LGBTQ sexual lifestyles or orientations are without exception, unscientific ideologies or concepts that some uninformed or mischievous people have come up with.
2. Medical data has shown that these lifestyles are characterized by the following: (i) Higher rates of HIV/AIDs (30 x higher), (ii) Increased rate of Anus & Rectum puncture, (iii) Faecal Incontinence, (iv) Anal Cancers & Warts, (v) Mouth & Throat Cancers, (vi) Substance, Alcohol and Tobacco Abuse, (vii) Hepatitis, (viii) Syphilis, (ix) Human Papilloma Virus, (x) Reduced life expectancy, (xi) Challenging Transgender transitioning processes and (xii) Astronomically higher Health Management costs to the public with no known public benefits.
There is therefore no scientific or genetic basis to say people are born as LGBTQ persons and so they have a “right” to be who they are. What they are fighting for is a right to be what they “have chosen to be”. Given the very high public health impact and costs, the implications for legal rights order, and the intolerable injury it portends to our cultural way of life; this lifestyle is one “choice” that we cannot afford in Ghana.
Based on these Legal, Socio-Cultural, Medical and Scientific facts, it is important to insist that none of our leaders buys into the narrative that LGBTQ rights exist, or that an issue of equality arises for debate or that the USA or any other country for that matter, has a more superior culture or set of values, that we must forcefully subscribe to as Ghanaians.
Mr. President, we ought to totally reject any such information or statements. Especially within the context that the trajectory of these lifestyles has an obvious calamitous end result because they tremendously increase the negative health impacts on citizens and reduce our life expectancy as human beings.
This current neo-colonialist attempt to subjugate and obliterate our norms, values, culture and faith, should be called out for what it is, an overt, all-out war on Africans and our way of life and a disrespectful way of saying that western cultures, ways of living and thinking are far superior to ours.
As a matter of fact, in the United States, 32 out of the 50 states still have laws banning same-sex marriage3. The various states of the US are therefore not unanimous in their acceptance of the lifestyle the Democrat government seeks to promote (Republicans – half of America4 – do not accept it) – and it is only the 2015 US Supreme Court decision in Obergfell v Hodges that gives some semblance of a legal right to what they want the totality of Africa and Ghana to embrace.
In this context, we call on all African states to stand together and reject these intrusions and influences and we (A4CG) stand with the government and good people of Uganda as they seek to preserve our African cultures, in line with the UN convention on Economic, Social and Cultural rights and we equally encourage the Government of Kenya, to realign its efforts to reign in this threat.
Having taken note that the Parliamentary select committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary affairs has reportedly finished its consultations, and that its report is ready, we hereby call on the Chair of the Committee – Honourable Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi and his colleague members to demonstrate good faith with the people of Ghana, by tabling this bill immediately for passage. The long delay in its tabling for the second reading and debate, is causing great uneasiness amongst citizens of this nation. It will be a shame if Parliament rises from this current session and the Chair has failed to ensure that the report was laid, as the Speaker of Parliament, Honourable Alban Bagbin has expressly called for.
IN CONCLUSION
1. Let us not buy into the intellectual dishonesty being propagated, that the UN has proclaimed LGBTQ + sexual lifestyles, practices or preferences as rights. No such rights have been legally determined by the UN.
2. Let us also not be deceived, there is nothing fundamental: innate, inherent,
inalienable, vital, essential, indispensable about these sexual CHOICES, preferences or lifestyles.
3. There is also no scientific basis for LGBTQ orientations, practices, let alone so-called rights.
4. Consequently, no issues of Equality arise anywhere or at anytime
3 https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/3758722-is-same-sex-marriage-legal-in-all-50-states/ [accessed 29/03/2023]
4 https://news.gallup.com/poll/467897/party-preferences-evenly-split-2022-shift-gop.aspx [Accessed 29/03/2023]
5. Instead, there are very huge costs to society and to all of us as citizens
6. There are no known public benefits. except perhaps the individual 10 minutes of private pleasure
7. This is definitely not the kind of legacy we want to leave for the youth of Ghana.
8. LGBTQ is an expensive lifestyle. Ghana’s economy is incapable of sustaining this.
9. At the moment, we do not have the fiscal space to cater for many other critical developmental needs.
10. The evidence will show that no developing country, has considered sponsoring LGBTQ as a driver of development.
Consequently, Advocates for Christ – Ghana, continues to express its full support and endorsement of the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021 and to call for its speedy passage in Parliament.
Thank you for your attention, God bless you and God bless our homeland Ghana.
