Gabby against hating homosexuals

Lawyer and  leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko has said Ghanaians should be cautions to not generate an intense hate campaign against homosexuals in the ongoing rising campaign against the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Life (LGBTQI+) community.

There has been widespread debate following the opening of an Accra office by the group in Ghana.

It has since triggered the resurfacing of concerns over activities of the community with calls from a cross-section of Ghanaians including the Proper Human Sexual Rights and Family Values and the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC) to have the group’s activities stopped.

Religious factions such as the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC), have further advanced arguments for the government to summon foreign diplomats supporting advocacy for LGBTQI rights in Ghana.

But according to Gabby, although the laws of the country frowns on the sexual orientation choices of LGBT, that however shouldn’t be the basis that persons engaged in such activities would be levelled to hate among other things from the public.

“You don’t have to be pro-gay to appreciate their situation. You only have to be human. Let us be careful and not generate an intense hate campaign against homosexuals. You can speak for the law and ‘culture’ minus hate,” he wrote on Facebook.

Meanwhile senior Lecturer at the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana Professor Ransford Yaw Gyampo has called on government to take a decisive and swift action by ensuring that the act will not fester.

“We’ve heard that the LGBTQI people have open an office, do you know the location? You have an office and nobody knows where it is and you are also not willing to show anybody. So, they are operating in the dark. It only means that act is in violation of the people’s belief system. If there is nothing wrong with that act, why don’t they make their activities public.”

According to him, Ghana as a society has a certain standard that makes it distinct from other societies therefore “if LGBTQI is accepted in other jurisdiction, the societal values of Ghana angrily frown on it”.

“…for any entity to be called a society, it must have standards. Every society has got an acceptable way of living or going about things. You cannot tell me that you have your rights so you will pass food through your armpit and not your mouth. If you see someone trying to pass food through the armpit, then it only means there is something wrong with that person. This is because the person will not be following the acceptable way of eating i.e. acceptable way of doing things”.

“Ghana is a transitional or an electoral democracy. And with this type of democracy, human rights are only confined to the exercise of political rights. So, the dominating feature is the right to vote and to be voted for. Again, one defining feature of this democratic order is the emphasis on the political rights of people. What we call economic, social and cultural rights are not largely emphasized. So normally you don’t hear people talk so much about not being employed, about their cultural and other social rights because they are not fully developed under transitional democracy. So, we will not accept it here,”