Executive Director for the Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has stated that passing the Promotion of Proper Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill 2021, is an attempt to convert sins into crimes.

Speaking at the first public sitting of Parliament's Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, Professor Henry Kwasi Prempeh argued that criminalising the activities of the gay community on grounds that they are sins, is unacceptable since there are a lot of sins that have not been criminalised.

"Adultery and prostitution are all sins but they are not criminalised because in secular states, we don't take sins and automatically make them crimes [especially] when they invade human liberty of some sort," he said.

According to him, "secular states have made a determination that certain private sins, as long as they take place among certain adults in certain relationships, and out of the public, will remain where they are i.e private between you and your God," he said.

"In my view, the very extraordinary totalitarian reach of this bill suggests that if this bill is allowed to see the light of day to become law, it will send this country back many decades if not centuries. It will erode much of the progress that we have made as a democracy.

"If you're an Afghanistan under the Taliban maybe every sin is a crime but in this kind of republic, we don't take sins and then convert them into crimes. There must be a secular reason why we would convert sin into a crime.

Prof. Prempeh further contended that, "there's a good reason to criminalise murder, because with murder, not only is it against the 10 commandments, that's not what the state says but you're taking someone's life and it's on the basis of that rationale that is criminalised. It's not because it's a theoretical wrong," he said.

The Committee begun the first of a series of public hearings on the Private Members bill on Thursday.

The bill, if passed in its current state, will criminalise Lesbianism, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and their related activities. Over 150 memos have been presented to the Committee so far, regarding the bill.

The public hearing on the memos received, is expected to last for 15 weeks.

Thursday's sitting saw eminent personalities from the Coalition of Lawyers, Academics, and other Professionals, Parliament, as well as the Human Rights Coalition presenting their arguments on why the Bill should be passed or rejected.