LGBTQ people in Ghana are calling for Parliament to open a referendum and have a public vote on gay rights.
This all started when the US. Ambassador to Ghana, Robert P. Jackson, talked on the GhanaWeb’s 21 minutes with KKB.
While being interviewed, Jackson shared that Ghana should work towards legalizing gay rights. Currently in Ghana, LGBTQ people can be arrested and put through torture, like medical abuse, because they are LGBTQ.
Jackson believes that Ghana should walk towards ending that.
“This is a long process and it was a long process in my country. Homosexual marriage has only become law in recent years and prior to that when I was growing up, nobody talked about homosexuality. Everyone who was gay suffered enormous discrimination and that has changed in the United States because people have a better understanding of the science and issues. I think that as Ghanaians gain a greater understanding of the science and issues, they’ll also be very tolerant because this is a very tolerant country and this is one area where Ghana’s tolerance seems very limited.”
That said, Robert P. Jackson is an ambassador to Ghana and not a politician from the country. Unfortunately, Ghanaian politicians have yet to make moves towards legalizing homosexuality. In fact, some are openly opposing the idea.
Speaker of Parliament Prof. Mike Oquaye made a statement last month that Ghana would not and should not legalize homosexuality.
“If you tell me that a man must sleep with a man so as to show his human rights for Ghana, I can assure you that our Parliament is a real micropause of the rule of Ghana. Ghanaians do not support gay rights and nobody is going to make any law that will support this kind of thing.”
Gay rights activist Philcollins Agbedanu Kröger (photographed in the featured image) later contacted news source GhanaWeb to speak out against Oquaye.
“… he’s not being fair to the gay and lesbian community in Ghana because when it comes to human rights, one person does not speak for the whole nation," he said in the audio found below, "Gay and lesbian rights legalization is not an individual issue… he can bring it on board for them to discuss it in Parliament, he can also call for a referendum and then people will vote."
Now, Philcollins Agbedanu Kröger and his associates are asking parliament to heed the words of Jackson and not Oquaye. They wish for LGBTQ rights to become a focus in Ghanaian politics.
But even if Parliament allowed a referendum and a public vote, would straight Ghanaian citizens support their LGBTQ brothers and sisters?
h/t: GhanaWeb
