The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin has revealed that parliament needs to speed up processes concerning the Anti-Gay bill that has been in parliament for some time now.
“Notice to the committee on constitutional legal and Parliamentary affairs. We have several bills pending before you and next be sure that we’ll have to take the most important bill”.
The speaker said this on the floor of parliament on Wednesday, November 22, 2023, when members were contemplating on whether to start day two of the 2024 budget debate in the absence of a minister from the finance ministry.
Alban Bagbin noted that “the most important bill has been pending for a long time and questions are being raised and you know when we delay with some of these things, it creates suspicion”.
He further stressed that, You know how critical this bill is to the people and we have to make sure it is passed.
“The most important bill” which is the Anti-Gay bill put before parliament by the member of parliament for Ningo Prampram Sam George seeks to frown on homosexuality and its related practices in the country.
The bill which is yet to be passed has come into the news once again after Sam George defended the Ghanaian traditional family values when he delivered a speech at the fifth Transatlantic Summit organized by the Political Network for Values on November 17, 2023.
Sam George argued that the concept of the natural family, based on the union of a man and a woman, is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international treaties.
He said that the distinction between sex and gender must be maintained and that gender cannot be used to redefine the family.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Ghana, Virginia Palmer said the passage of the bill will send a wrong signal to American investors as she described the bill as discriminatory on human rights.
