Appearing before the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee, Dr Akwasi Osei said, in Ghana, a minute percentage of homosexuals are born as such.

“Many people learn homosexuality as a habit and only a few are born with the homosexual tendency so the argument that they are born with it is only a few. 6.7 percent are born with it and 93 percent are not born with it so any argument that they are born with it and it is normal is false,” he argued.

The act, he said constitutes mental illness by scientific definition. This, he explained is a departure from normality and causes severe and persistent distress or pain to society and victims of homosexual conduct.

Dr. Osei, therefore, described the claims about homosexual activities as being normal are specious.

“An NGO did a study and estimated that there are about 650,000 people in Ghana with homosexual tendency and that there are 350,000 in Accra, 250,000 in Takoradi and 50,000 elsewhere. If you bring all these you get about 0.02 percent of the Ghanaian population. How can you say that 0.02 percent is a common phenomenon and therefore is normal?

There is a scientific way of determining what is normal and abnormal. It is not left to people’s whims and caprices to determine what is normal and abnormal. If you have a population and one or two out of 30 million or so, it is the frequency that determines whether you call it normal or abnormal. It is not whether you were born with it or not,” he said.

He further noted that out of the 0.02 percent of homosexuals in Ghana, 93 percent of them learned the act through peer pressure, economic reasons, curiosity, and aversion for the opposite sex as a result of rape and defilement.

Over 140 memos have been presented to the Committee so far regarding the Bill.

The Bill, if passed in its current state, will criminalise Lesbianism, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and their related activities.

A group opposing the passage of the Bill, Concerned Ghanaian Citizens said the Bill will violate human rights and promote hate against persons belonging to the LGBTQ+ communities.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC) has called for the swift passage of the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021, into law.

Other groups that have appeared before the Committee included the Human Rights Coalition, Amnesty International and Advocates for Christ.

Watch video of him below:

President of the Catholic Bishops Conference, Most Rev Philip Naameh, has revealed that the Church has set up medical units to help rehabilitate homosexuals.

According to him, the Church is concerned about the welfare of the people, hence the initiative to help homosexuals in society.

Speaking in an interview with Raymond Acquah on JoyNews’ Upfront on Thursday, he said the church maintains that homosexuality is a medical condition even though the WHO, as far back as 1990, removed it from its list of diseases.

“We also think that this is also not just anti, we have put out there, a holistic treatment for people who are already involved in gay, to treat them because some of them are already experiencing hormonal imbalances and that is pushing them there,” he said.

He also argued that homosexuality is not a way of life; therefore, “anytime they decide, they should know that we are committed to treating them and making them normal human beings to engage in normal sexual and family relationships, so we are concerned about the health and welfare of the people.”

The Archbishop explained that a crack team of experts have been identified to help those who admit they need treatment without exposing their identity.

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“We have a number of specialist doctors who are giving up their services, and we don’t want to call names because there may be some who are willing to be treated of this issue of being gay or lesbian.

“They can be treated. It is not just a way of life, and we don’t want to publish locations of these hospitals because some may want to go there, and we want to respect the confidentiality of the gay and lesbian members,” he noted.

Listen to the audio attached above:

Punch reports that one of them, said to be in his early 40s and identified simply as Stephen, was reported to be sleeping with a young man in the toilet when they were caught

The attendant of the public toilet, Vitalis Andrew, recalled that Stephen and his alleged partner paid him money to use two different toilet rooms.

But another customer, who was using one of the toilets, heard loud moaning and suspected something was fishy.

Andrew claimed that the customer climbed the wall separating the two toilet rooms and saw Stephen having intercourse with his partner.

“This morning, one guy paid me to use the toilet, unknown to me that the person who stood by him was his sexual partner. The man entered, followed by his partner, and some minutes afterward, we started to hear loud moaning.

“When we peeped, we saw both of them making out. But before we could raise the alarm, they had run away. So, I went to where his (Stephen’s) car was parked and I could not find him. So, I called my Oga and he instructed me to find him and hold on. We have handed the man over to the police,” the attendant said.

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The Manager of the public toilet, Chamberline Dappa, said he called the police who came and rescued the suspect from the mob.

“This morning, I was coming from the house when my second called me that they caught somebody sleeping with his fellow man inside the public toilet, so I asked them to hold on until I come.

“Before I arrived at the place, the second person had run away. As I came in, I saw a crowd; all of them were eager to beat the man and I asked them not to. When I saw the situation and noticed that the crowd wanted to overpower me, I called the police.

“The police arrested him and we went to the station, where I made a statement. They asked me to present the eyewitness that saw them.

“I went to the man’s shop, but he was not there, so I reported back to the police to tell them that at 11:00 am, I will provide the witness.”

Confirming the incident, the spokesperson of the state Police Public Relations Officer, Nnamdi Omoni, said both suspects are now in custody.

Dr Stephen Ayisi Addo said: “We have noticed in our data that a lot of the men who have sex with men in Ghana are young and are bi-sexual; what it means is that though they practice homosexuality, they have sex with females.”

Dr Addo disclosed this during the fifth edition of the Tema office of the Ghana News Agency stakeholder engagement on the topic, ‘Workplace Policy on HIV/AIDS, who enforces it: the legal basis for churches demanding HIV/AIDS test from would-be partners? Role of partners of infected individual.’

He explained that as an HIV high-risk population with a prevalence rate of 18 per cent, such homosexuals that were also bi-sexual served as bridging populations just like female sex workers.

“So they get the high risk from homosexuality and give to their female partners and then they too transmit to other partners,” he said.

Touching on the ongoing debate on Lesbians, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender (LGBT+) issues in Ghana, he stressed that their responsibility as health workers was to provide care for all health-related issues that might occur from the act but not to promote it as they saw it as a private behaviour.

“As a Programme, we have the responsibility to reduce HIV in all high-risk population groups that is where it ends; we have an obligation to treat them. However, our responsibility is not to promote the behaviour because we see it as private,” he said.

He stressed that: “I will take care of you because I am a health worker. But, as a Programme, I always draw the clear lines that though it is sex and sexual orientation that is high risk and have a relationship with prevalence, it is private.

“Ours is to deal with all consequences as a result of the behaviour, and so as part of it, we prevent by giving education so that people don’t engage in risky behaviours, but we will not promote it”.

Explaining the high prevalence rate among the LGBT+ population, Dr Addo said it was due to the likelihood of getting bruises and cuts in the anus during their sexual preference, making it easy to transmit the disease.

Touching on the current data of HIV infections in Ghana, he revealed that the national prevalence rate stood at 1.7 per cent, among pregnant women attending antenatal was 15 per cent, while female sex workers who have multiple partners was 4.6 per cent.

Dr Addo said as of 2020, an estimated number of 346,120 people were living with HIV in Ghana, out of which more than 80 per cent were females.

He added that the new infection recorded was approximately 19,000, with about 14,000 deaths in 2020.

Francis Ameyibor, Tema Regional Manager of GNA, said the engagement, which takes place on the last Wednesday of every month, was a progressive media caucus platform created to allow both state and non-state stakeholders to interact with journalists and address national issues.

Mr Ameyibor said the Agency used the platform to deepen the working relations with the stakeholders to ensure that both the media and the corporate world worked together towards national development.

The event also served as a motivational mechanism to recognise the editorial contribution of reporters to the professional growth and promotion of Tema GNA as the industrial news hub while contributing to national development in general.

He said the Council would keep harmering and informing the Ghanaian community that Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) is “wrong, foreign, unnatural and ungodly”, and society must frown upon it.

Rev. Frimpong-Manso added that the Council had proposed a legislation that prohibited the practice of homosexuality in the country, awaiting approval by Parliament.

“We have joined a Coalition to protest against this LGBTQI because we support proper human sexuality, “he said.

He made the statement at the Council’s National Delagates Conference in Accra to discuss the affairs of the Council and deliberate on effective ways to serve the Church, nation and society at large.

Addressing issues related to security in the country, he appealed to government to provide support, funds and the appropriate resources and gadgets to security agencies to enable them execute their roles effectively.

“The Police and other security agencies are doing their best, but it is not enough and so let us not chastise them, but rather encourage them to beef up their strategies in discharging their duties to make us feel more secure,” he said.

Rev Frimpong-Manso said the mandate of the Council was to reach out to those without the gospel, support the churches and also cooperate and support government in national development.

A total of 21 new applicants were presented and admitted on two years probation, and 13 members who had gone through monitoring for two years on probation with good standing orders by the council were confirmed as members.

Reverend Sam Korankye Ankrah, first Vice President of the Council, formally received the new members and charged them to be accountable, responsible and committed, adding that the Association would help and direct them on good Christian practices.

He charged Christians to live decent and moral lives in their communities to draw men to Christ.

Apostle Eric Nyamekye, Chairman of the Church of Pentecost, and the second Vice President of GPCC, said doctrinal differences with other churches coming together under an umbrella, made it difficult to control members, but the Council was committed to encouraging and correcting members to help build a kingdom and not a denomination.

He added that the GPCC had the opportunity to meet with the regional statisticians to educate their members on the 2021 National Population and Housing Census and therefore charged the Christian fraternity to avail themselves to be counted.

Apostle Nyamekye encouraged Ghanaians to participate in the ongoing census and cooperate well with the enumerators who are spearheading the exercise with accurate data.

“When they come to your home, don’t drive them away, receive them and cooperate with them because this is an important exercise to the Christian kingdom to get the right number of the population, and also know places we can evangelise and build churches depending on the population,” he said.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Bishop Stephen Owusu Jackson, Chairman of Christian Praise International Center, (CPIC), who had been confirmed as a member of GPCC, said he was privileged to be part of a Christian body that had rules and principles and a voice that spoke on behalf of the Church.

GPCC is a faith-based Organization, and the umbrella with over 240 registered Pentecostal and Charismatic Christian church denominations and para-churches in Ghana, with 13 new members being confirmed to membership and 21 other churches put on probation.

The conference brought together National Executive Council Members of the Council across the country.

The two- Roland Brown, 26-year-old man from Takoradi and Eric Nti, 20-year-old Senior High School (SHS) lever, told the police that they booked the hotel room to rest but the attendants forcibly entered the room few minutes later to arrest them for allegedly having anal sex.

Nti told the police that “Roland was in the bathroom having his bath while I was wearing my boxer shorts inside the room when one of the attendants, the receptionist of the hotel, stormed our room unannounced and accused us of having anal sex.”

He said the receptionist later called other workers at the hotel, who forced them to go naked and act like they were having sex for pictures to be taken.

The bizarre pictures of the two having anal sex went viral on social media Sunday evening.

In view of that, the Kaneshie Divisional Police Command has apprehended two of the hotel staff to assist in investigations.

The pictures of the two have been widely condemned by members of the general public, who have called on the police to investigate the matter and deal with culprits for taking the pictures and circulating them on social media.

The two suspected homosexuals are also in custody assisting in investigations.

ACP Ernest Owusu, who confirmed the issue, said the two suspected homosexuals were handed over to the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) on Sunday evening by hotel officials for engaging in anal sex in the hotel room at Mataheko.

He said the hotel attendants informed the police that the two men rented a room to relax and to take their bath before embarking on a journey to Takoradi on Sunday around 4:30pm.

According to the receptionist, he spotted the suspects having anal sex through the window while attending to another client and used his cell phone to take pictures of them after which he called the police.

The police commander said upon interrogations, it was discovered that the statements given by the hotel attendants were inaccurate.

“A careful look at the pictures of the accused persons circulating on social media even reveals that the said pictures were not taken through a window as claimed by the attendants but in the open.

In view of that, the police commander said the suspects identified two attendants who are currently in custody assisting in investigations.

“Even though some of us may be against homosexuality in the country as our religious beliefs infringe on that, the police do not want people to take the law into their own hands and humiliate, molest innocent persons on suspicion that they are homosexuals without proper evidence.”

He said investigations were still ongoing to uncover the truth and the culprits would definitely be arraigned before court to serve as a deterrent to others.

It would be recalled that a bizarre picture of a man bonking an SHS student went viral on social media Sunday evening.

Sources said the two suspects told the receptionist that they wanted to relax and freshen up in the hotel room before embarking on the journey to Takoradi.

The said receptionist, who later became suspicious of their movements and demeanour, gave them a room.

source: Daily Guide