The new legislation passed by Ghana's parliament Wednesday, imposes a prison sentence of up to three years for anyone convicted of identifying as LGBTQ+; and a maximum five-year jail term for forming or funding LGBTQ+ groups. The bill which had the backing of the West African nation's two major political parties, will come into effect when President Nana Akufo-Addo signs it into law.
"After three long years, we have finally passed the HUMAN SEXUAL RIGHTS & FAMILY VALUES ACT 2024," Samuel Nartey George, one of the bill's leading sponsors wrote on X. "I am grateful to my Colleague sponsors who have waged this battle with me to a successful end. Our collective gratitude goes to our Leadership and the Rt. Hon. Speaker for their guidance and leadership. Our values would be protected and defended so long as we have a voice. For God and Country."
During the days-long debate, deputy parliamentary leader of the governing party Alexander Afenyo-Markin, in suspected foreign-backed effort, tried to reduce the penalty to community service and counselling, but the effort was soundly defeated.
The bill approved by lawmakers is a watered-down version of an earlier draft, which proposes a jail term of up to 10 years for anyone involved in LGBTQ+ advocacy campaigns aimed at children. It also encourages the public to report members of the LGBTQ+ community to authorities for "necessary action." A clause on conversion therapy was also removed in the final draft.
The West African country already made homosexual sex illegal, carrying a three-year prison sentence.
Lawmakers said the new bill was drafted in response to the opening of the nation's first LGBTQ+ community center in the capital, Accra, in January 2021. At the time, the Christian Council of Ghana and the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council said in a joint statement that being LGBTQ+ "is alien to the Ghanaian culture and family value system and, as such, the citizens of this nation cannot accept it."
Police shut down the LGBTQ center following sustained public protests, and pressure from religious bodies and traditional leaders in the largely Christian nation.
In earlier remarks promising the bill would be passed, leading opposition lawmaker ABA Fuseinin said that "we have made it abundantly clear that we'll never allow this perverse behavior and perverse character where all sorts of queer behavior -- a man marrying a man, woman marrying a woman -- and is alien to our culture." He also called out President Akufo-Addo for being influenced by western pro-LGBTQ leaders.
Conservatives in the United States and Europe cheered the new bill's passage, and praised Ghanaian leaders for rejecting LGBTQ degeneracy and resisting the aggressive pressure campaigns by far-left globalist politicians and organizations against the bill.
United States President Joe Biden and other left-wing western leaders have threatened financial consequences against countries that oppose LGBTQ+ lifestyle. But that has not stopped many of them from banning such degeneracy which is aggressively pushed in the west by organizations funded by globalist Jewish billionaire George Soros.
WATCH Ghana parliament pass the new anti-LGBTQ bill, and lawmaker Fuseinin earlier remarks