The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has directed the Business Committee of the House to draft the anti-gay bill into next week’s agenda for deliberation.
The deliberation on the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill was supposed to have been held this week.
However, upon enquiry from a sponsor of the Bill, Sam Nartey George, there has been two lawsuits filed against it.
One is said to have been filed at the Supreme Court while the other at the High Court.
The Speaker is said to have been cited in one of the suits after informing leadership about the two suits.
“Mr Speaker brought the court action to the attention of leaders and so I think in considering programming or not programming it, you may wish to discuss with the Speaker what steps you may take before you programme them,” First Deputy Speaker Joseph Osei-Owusu told Deputy Majority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markins on Friday, June 16.
Exactly a week after that, the Speaker, who was in the chair himself, ordered that the deliberations should be held on Tuesday, June 27.
Speaker Bagbin has been an ardent opponent to the activities of homosexuals in the country.
In his recent tour of the northern region of Ghana to mark 30 years of parliamentary democracy, the former lawmaker told journalists that he will prefer to die than to see activities of gays and lesbians legalised.
“For you all to participate in it, count me out of Ghana,” the Speaker of Parliament told journalists as part of his tour.
“I will prefer to join my Maker than to live. That is me. I am a Catholic and pro-life. I will not do anything that will end the world because God says the world is eternal. Until He comes back we cannot do that to end the world.”