Fornication, Adultery Bigger Threat To Society Than LGBTQ+ – Akoto Ampaw

Private legal practitioner, Akoto Ampaw, has given another justification for his opposition to the anti-LGBTQ+ bill, describing as hypocritical the decision by some members of Parliament to seek a criminalization of same-sex relations.

The hypocrisy, according to the revered lawyer is exhibited by the sponsors of the bill with their failure to make adultery and fornication criminal.

Akoto Ampaw in a JoyNews interview made the argument that the view of religious groups on same-sex relations should not form the basis for the enactment of a law against the community.

He said that any move in that regard is an aberration and an affront to the tenets of the 1992 constitution which he claims preaches equalization and abhors division on religious lines.

Akoto Ampaw is worried that whiles the MPs and some Ghanaians are basing their rejection of same-sex relations on religious principles, same is not being said about fornication and adultery which are equally forbidden in the Bible.

In his estimation, there is no bigger threat to the family unit than fornication and adultery and that Ghanaians should rather be concerned about curbing it.

“We shall not commit adultery is in our ten commandments. We shall not fornicate. These are called the sins of the flesh so in the Christian community, these are very strong values but is anybody saying that we should pass a law to criminalize adultery? Nobody is saying that.

“There is a certain hypocrisy about this law. They talk about family values, Christian values etc. but adultery is a greater threat to the family as a unit than the homosexuals. In fact, I do not how the homosexual community is a threat to the family unit. We should be careful about importing important religious values which may be important within their space of religion into the law of the state into a republic that is secular.

“Christians play important role in our society but so do Muslims and our traditional authorities but that doesn’t mean that they should force the state to make their sectarian beliefs a matter of law because the constitution forbids that.

Akoto Ampaw is a member of a coalition of law experts and academicians who are opposed to the anti-LGBTQ bill before parliament.

They argue that the bill is an abuse of the fundamental human rights of LGBTQ+ community in the country.