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Ghana’s Leading Opposition Presidential Candidate, Mahama Says His Christian Belief Is Against Gay Marriage, Being Transgender Ahead Of 2024 Election

Ghana’s Leading Opposition Presidential Candidate, Mahama Says His Christian Belief Is Against Gay Marriage, Being Transgender Ahead Of 2024 Election
February 1, 2024

Mahama, however, did not say whether he would sign the bill that would criminalize same-sex relations, being transgender and advocating LGBTQ rights, should he win the presidential election in December.

Ghana's former president and leading opposition presidential candidate John Dramani Mahama has expressed his opposition to LGBTQ+ rights but did not say if he would support a bill aimed at criminalising same-sex relations.

 

According to Reuters, Mahama during a meeting with members of the clergy in eastern Ghana on Wednesday, said gay marriage and being transgender were against his Christian beliefs.

 

"The faith I have will not allow me to accept a man marrying a man, and a woman marrying a woman," Mahama said while responding to a church leader's call against LGBTQ+ people.

 

"I don't believe that anybody can get up and say I feel like a man although I was born a woman and so I will change and become a man," he added.

 

Mahama, however, did not say whether he would sign the bill that would criminalize same-sex relations, being transgender and advocating LGBTQ rights, should he win the presidential election in December.

 

The main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress, voted last year to retain Mahama as its leader for the 2024 presidential election.

 

Lawmakers in the West African nation have been debating the Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill since August 2021.

 

Passing the bill would further reduce freedoms in a country where gay sex is already punishable with up to three years in jail, critics and activists say.

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Ghana