Catholic Bishops Urge Ghana’s President to Pass Anti-LGBT Bill

Three of Ghana’s Catholic Bishops meet with Presient Mahama.

When representatives of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference met with the African nation’s president  this month to congratulate him on his election, they also urged him to reintroduce the “Proper Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill,” also known as “The Anti-LGBT Bill,” which the president described as “effectively dead.” 

AdomOnline.com reported that President John Dramani Maham had not given presidential assent  to the bill prior to the end of the Eightth parliament. Maham also said that if the bill were to be reintroduced in a new parliament, it should be sponsored by the ruling administration, instead of by an individual parliament member, because that status would require it to include more input and ensure national consensus. The precise contents of the bill are currently not public. 

The Ghanian president believes that legislation is unnecessary to protect African values, stressing instead the role education plays: 

“If we teach our values in schools, we won’t need a bill to enforce our family values. Instead of passing the family values bill, we should focus on agreeing on a curriculum that instills these values in our children as they grow up so that legislation isn’t necessary.”

The bishops remained adamant that legislation was a crucial component, with Conference President Bishop Matthew Gyamfi telling Maham that “What we want is for the bill to be made into law. That does not mean it cannot also be taught in schools once it becomes law.” He added that “The fact that it should be taught does not negate the need for it to become law.” Gyamfi invoked a popular mandate, telling the newly elected president that “Ghanaians are overwhelmingly in favor of this, and we do not want technical language to undermine the will of the people.”

Despite the bishops’ claim of national consensus for the bill, the Ghanaian news outlet GraphicOnline described the bill as “controversial,” and reports that during Maham’s 2024 campaign his assent to the bill would depend on its contents and would also require broad consultation with relevant bodies. The president affirmed that though the bill is “not an anti-LGBTQI bill,” but also said that LGBTQ+ concerns are indeed “against our African culture…against our religious faith.” 

According to Graphic, Maham thanked the bishops for the church’s role in education and healthcare and “welcomed its input on the moral and educational development of the nation’s youth.”These developments occur after Pope Francis restated in his new autobiography  that homosexuality is “not a crime.” The bishops’ staunch opposition to LGBTQ+ civil rights exemplifies the deep divide between the church in the global north and south. As Fr. James Martin said in October 2024, attempts to soften the Church’s own rhetoric on LGBTQ+ people as well as any notion of greater tolerance in civil society are often viewed with suspicion and understood as “ideological colonialism” by non-Western societies. This tension is perhaps one of the greatest synodal projects moving forward for the global church, as it becomes increasingly weighted in the global south, particularly in Africa where the church enjoys tremendous sway in public life.

—Jeromiah Taylor, New Ways Ministry, January 25, 2025