Our church leaders are hypocrites; some are gays - Maurice Ampaw alleges

Private legal practitioner, Maurice Ampaw, has said that some pastors are not publicly condemning the LGBTQ+ movement for fear that they may lose members of their church who are rich and influential.

He also alleges that some of these pastors engage in LGBTQ+ acts making it difficult for them to support the anti-gay bill.

He shared these thoughts during an interview with Happy FM’s Don Prah on the ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ show.

“One of the most hypocritical institutions we have is Christianity. The people of the Christian community are hypocrites and they are confused. They don’t know what they want. The one-man churches don’t talk about gayism because they know in their churches, there may be influential and rich people who are financing the church activities and also engage in gayism. So, they will never come out. They will hide behind the Christian council and the Pentecost church.

"The interesting thing is some pastors are involved in gayism. There are women pastors who are lesbians.”

According to him, the Islamic community is more serious and organised than the Christian community.

Anti-gay bill

Earlier this year, the Speaker of Parliament received a private member bill from some MPs that would expand on the current law that provides up to three years in prison for same-sex activity.

Reports have it that the new bill when passed will prohibit and criminalise advocacy, funding, and the act of LGBTQ+ while promoting conversion therapy programmes seeking to “convert” people from homosexuality to heterosexuality.

Meanwhile, fifteen renowned legal, academic and civil society professionals have filed a memorandum challenging the anti-gay legislation submitted to Parliament.

In the memorandum, they contend that the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021, which seeks to criminalise LGBTQ+ and adjacent activities, is an “impermissible invasion of the inviolability of human dignity.”

Some Christian leaders, on the other hand, have submitted a memorandum to Parliament on the Proper Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, endorsing the bill.