Samuel Nartey George, Member of Parliament for the Ningo-Prampram Constituency, has described homosexuality as a sort of mental disorder.
Quoting the American Psychiatric Association, he said it was until 1974 that homosexuality was de-listed as a mental illness.
Speaking on the floor of parliament on Wednesday, July 5, 2023, during the debate on the promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021, the energetic member of parliament said people who identify as homosexuals need psychological care.
“It was only in 1974 that the American Psychiatric Association de-listed homosexuality as a mental illness. In fact, anybody who studied any of the mental science manuals, which is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) before 1974, homosexuality was listed as a mental illness along with necrophilia, zoophilia and paedophilia.
The decision in 1974 to de-list mental illness was not based on science. It was based on an opinion poll of only 6,000 people, so clearly, homosexuality is a form of madness and mental illness, and what they need is psychological care,” he stated.
He also charged parliament to protect public health, attributing prevalence of HIV in Ghana to men having sex with their fellow men.
“When you look at the Ghana AIDS Commission’s own data, men having sex with men is a prevalent cause of the increase in HIV AIDS in our country so we have a duty to protect public morals and public health because the consequence of an increased HIV prevalence is on the taxpayer,” he stressed.
