US Ambassador to Ghana Virginia Palmer says, calls for the protection of the rights of people of same-sex orientation should not be misconstrued as an attempt to push such interests.
“We don’t want your straight children to be gay, we want your gay children to be safe and I think it is very important that any sort of threat on one group demonstrates that the rights of other people can be encroached upon,” she said.
In an interview with JoyNews’ Foreign Affairs programme, Ambassador Palmer stated that all forms of discrimination are bad, thus the need for social protection policies to safeguard the minority group.
In Ghana, intimate same-sex relationships are punishable by a three-year prison sentence.
A bill named the “Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values”, was proposed months after Ghana’s first LGBT community centre opened in Accra in January last year.
The bill seeks to increase jail terms to up to a decade and makes cross-dressing and public displays of same-sex affection punishable by fines or detention. It also makes the distribution of material deemed pro-LGBT by news organisations or websites illegal.