
By Professor Jeffrey Haynes
The LGBT+ issue has been a hot topic since a private members bill was introduced to parliament in June 2021. Samuel Nartey George, MP for Ningo-Prampram constituency, Greater Accra, along with seven other members of parliament, submitted to the Speaker of Parliament a private members bill, The Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021. The bill passed through a first reading in parliament and was referred to the Committee on Constitutional, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs in August 2021. Following amendments, the bill, which proposed additional, wide-ranging restrictions on LGBT+ rights, was approved unanimously by parliament on 28 February 2024. The bill was not signed into law by President Akuffo before the end of his tenure on 6 January 2025. The fate of the anti-LGBT+ bill became the next president’s concern.
President Mahama was quick to address the issue. His recent comments and reflections suggest that his thinking has changed since the election campaign. Shortly after the 7 December elections, the then president-elect, John Dramani Mahama, urged the then president, Nana Akufo-Addo, to ‘Sign the Anti-LGBTQ Bill Before It Expires’, that is, before 6 January 2025. If not, the next parliament would have to reintroduce it, he told a delegation of clergy leaders from the Assemblies of God.
Change of tune
During a meeting with senior clergy at the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference on 14 January 2025, President Mahama had changed his tune: Ghana does not need an anti-LGBT+ bill, he stated. Instead, what the country requires is a suitable family values education curriculum for school children. Confusingly, however, President Mahama also appeared to signal that he wants an anti-LGBT+, government-sponsored, bill introduced, which aligns with ‘Ghanaian cultural and religious values’.
Opponents of the bill claim that any such bill would fundamentally infringe Ghanaians’ human rights. It is not as though homosexuality is legal now in Ghana and a new bill would introduce, for the first time, restrictions on the practice. Homosexuality was first criminalised under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, a law introduced during British colonial rule, implemented in all British colonies. The law did not take into account ‘Ghanaian cultural and religious values’; rather it reflected British Victorian values where (male) homosexuality was anathema, although widely practised – covertly – by many British men, including regular church goers and members of the social elite. This might be seen as an example of the hypocrisy of Britain’s establishment: claiming to follow Christian values while egregiously deviating from them. Following independence, Section 104 of the Ghanaian Criminal Code of 1960 criminalised ‘unnatural carnal knowledge’, that is, male homosexual relations.
The LGBT+ issue has been of considerable social and legal importance in the Gold Coast/Ghana for more than 150 years. A punitive law has not eliminated LGBT+ people and practices. Would an additional law, imposing new penalties, remove LGBT+ from Ghana? The simple answer is ‘no’. The thinking behind the now-expired private members’ anti-LGBT+ bill was that homosexuality is a trendy ‘choice’, encouraged by decadent/secular Western interests to subvert the youth of Ghana away from the righteous path of ‘proper’ ‘Ghanaian cultural and religious values’. Members of Ghana’s LGBT+ community are clear: ‘this is who I am’. I haven’t ‘become’ gay due to the influence of trendy Western thinking.
Current stance
President Mahama’s recent comments about Ghana not needing a suitable family values curriculum to educate children has been interpreted as a significant shift in position from what senior members of the NDC and himself said during the 2024 general election campaign. During the 14 January meeting with Catholic clergy, President Mahama emphasised that, in his view, Ghana’s cultural and moral values would be better preserved through a curriculum that instils family values in the younger generation. ‘We won’t need a bill to enforce our family values’, Mahama said, ‘And that’s why I think more than even the Family Values Bill, it’s us agreeing on a curriculum that inculcates these values into our children as they’re growing up so that we don’t need to legislate it’.
Mahama’s new stance on the LGBTQ+ bill could have significant political implications. On the one hand, it is likely to alienate some conservative groups. On the other hand, it positions his administration as both socially progressive and internationally aligned. His stress on education and dialogue, rather than punishment, reflects a pragmatic approach: address an important social concern without seriously undermining human rights.
Just as Ghana has had anti-LGBT+ legislation for many years, so the education system has been providing moral and religious education for generations of school children. Moral education is also provided by the family, as well as civil society organisations, religious bodies, and the mass media. Schools teach integrated religious and moral education, with values gleaned from a Christian worldview. What is needed is a reformist approach advocating not Christian values but a non-religious approach to moral reasoning so children can ascertain for themselves what is morally appropriate.
Ghana is a plural society. Teaching about morality should not be based on the values of a particular religious tradition. It should be informed by values held by all sections of society, not only Ghana’s hegemonic religion, Christianity. Finding out what those values are is a task to be accomplished by dialogue among all stakeholder groups. This is the key to improved social harmony among all interest groups in Ghana, whether religious, political or social.
Professor Jeffrey Haynes, London Metropolitan University, UK; tsjhayn1@londonmet.ac.uk