The controversial gay billboard on the Tema Motorway has finally been pulled down following agitation by MP for Ningo Prampram, Sam George.
Sam George had called on the Inspector-General of Police to pull down the billboard mounted by members of the Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) community in Ghana.
His comment came after the LGBTQI community in Ghana mounted a billboard along the Tema Motorway to commemorate Pride Awareness month.
Expressing his displeasure during a Press conference yesterday, Sam George said the billboard is an affront to the 1992 Constitution and that he will take the necessary action within the legal framework to destroy the billboard should the Police fail to pull it down.
“As sponsors of the bill before Parliament and as Members of Parliament who represent the aspirations and will of the Ghanaian people, we have deemed it important to show up here today to register in the strongest term our displeasure, our discomfort and our abhorrence for unholy, uncultural and untraditional billboard advertisement that has been put up on a very iconic road the N1, the Tema motorway.”
“We are by this, calling on the Inspector General of Police Dr. Akuffo Dampare to immediately, within the next twenty-four hours, carry out the necessary security operations to ensure that this billboard, which is an affront to the 1992 Constitution is taken down in conjunction with the MCE for the area. Failure to take action, as citizens we will take action as enjoined by the Constitution to defend the Constitution,” Sam George told pressmen.
According to the anti-gay bill, people of the same sex who engage in sexual intercourse are “liable on summary conviction to a fine of not less than seven hundred and fifty penalty units and not more than five thousand penalty units, or to a term of imprisonment of not less than three years and not more than five years or both.
The anti-gay bill also proposes that a person who, by use of media, technological platform, technological account, or any other means, produces, procures, markets, broadcasts, disseminates, publishes, or distributes material for purposes of promoting an activity prohibited under the Bill, or a person uses an electronic device, the Internet service, a film, or any other device capable of electronic storage or transmission to produce, procure, market, broadcast, disseminate, publishes or distribute material for purposes of promoting an activity prohibited under the Bill, commits an offense and is liable on summary conviction to a term of imprisonment of not less than five years and not more than ten years.
Moses Foh-Amoaning, law lecturer and convener of Anti-Gay Rights Coalition says the billboard by the members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex (LGBTQI) community in Ghana is an affront to the 1992 Constitution.
In an interview on Atinka FM yesterday, Foh Amoaning said the LGBTQI community in Ghana is bent on desensitizing the general public and portraying LGBTQI as the order of the day.
“The spirit behind LGBTQ is a determined spirit. It is very obvious that the community wants to desensitize the general public through advocacy, advertisement, and billboards. This should send a signal to the Parliamentarians so they can pass the bill as soon as possible,” Foe Amoning told Kaakyire Ofori Ayim.
