US should first legalize polygamy before 'lecturing' us about LGBTQ rights – Sam George

Ningo Prampram Member of Parliament, Sam Nartey George, has thrown a challenge to the United States government to legalize polygamy if it is indeed concerned about human rights and the protection of the same for all manner of persons.

The lawmaker, one of eight MPs sponsoring Ghana's anti-same-sex legislation, is convinced that of all countries in the world, the US

Read full articleshould be the last to offer moral lessons to others.

He was responding to comments by Virginia Palmer, the US ambassador to Ghana, who in an interview with Accra-based JoyNews stated that, contrary to the popular belief, the US was asking that the rights of all persons be respected in Ghana and that, by doing so, it was not promoting the agenda of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and queers (LGBTQ).

"We will take a lecture from the American ambassador when her government decides not to discriminate against people who have a right to polygamy in the United States.

"When the US is able to respect the right of persons to have more than one wife legally, which is allowed in Ghana. When they respect the right of persons to marry multiple women or multiple men as they so choose which is also the fundamental human right to association, then we will have a conversation," Sam George submitted on The Probe, a programme that aired on JoyNews on Sunday, December 11.

He continued: "But until they (the American government) are able to respect the right of persons in the US who want to be polygamous, then they don't have any moral right to talk to us."

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He said the US did not have the moral right to lecture others on human rights because of the known infractions Washington has engaged in across the world.

"…for now, the US government is the last government that should speak about human rights. They are the biggest abusers of human rights and so we will give them a lecture on human rights. They have to respect the fundamental human rights of people and not the other way round," he added.

Meanwhile, the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee through its chairman, Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi, has hinted that it could submit its report on the anti-gay bill before the House breaks for the Christmas and New Year holidays.

The bill, officially known as 'The Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill' was laid before the House earlier this year and referred to the Committee for among others, public consultation.

It was sponsored by eight MPs, seven from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and one from the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

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