The Joint Leadership of the Muslim community, under the auspices of the National Chief Imam, have declared their support and unconditional approval for the anti-LGBTQI+ bill laid before Parliament.

The Joint Leadership said the issue of LGBTQI+ was about the dignity and time-honoured values of the nation and went beyond human rights and constitutionality.

Addressing the Media on Wednesday, the Spokesperson for the National Chief Imam, Sheikh Aremeyaw Shaibu, speaking on behalf of the leadership, said Islam, as faith and system of life, opposed LGBTQI+, which is damnable, morally objectionable, publicly and socially reprehensible and above all a subject of a divine prohibition on some grounds.

He said, "It is a damnable moral perversion capable of evoking divine anger on the nation. It is our conviction that the wrath of the Almighty God against the people of Lut in the Holy Qur'an is enough; a clear indication that the practice of LGBTQI+ is a moral perversion and a damnable practice that portends pernicious consequence on a community, as stated in Qur'an 26 verse 173."

Sheikh Shaibu said it was also a threat to the survival of the family and violation of national order, saying Islam as a way of life upheld a belief in the sanctity, values and necessity of the family institution as a unit of a society built on the foundation of marriage between the members of the opposite sex.

"The thrust of our argument, in this vein, is that same-sex marriage and the related sexual aberrations in the Islamic view constitute a violation of national order and a war against the very survival of the family and its values. We believed that marriage between males and females is key to the actualization of the divine plan to keep the family in perpetuity for the multiplication and long term survival of the human species," he added.

The Spokesperson also noted that it was the view of the leadership of the Muslim community that beneath the viewpoints of the proponents of LGBTQA were hedonistic and humanistic philosophical inclinations which made complete nonsense of God's involvement in human affairs and an attempt to declare the Almighty God irrelevant in the affairs of man.

According to Islam, life is a divine creation made for a purpose and true Life is the one lived for the fulfilment of divine purpose, he said, adding that the argument that Ghana was a secular state and considering secularism synonymous with Godlessness was conceptually incorrect.

"Contrary to being considered Godless, Ghana is a secular state with a deep sense of God, thus LGBTQI+ is therefore abhorrent to our sense of national morality and sense of God."

He commended the eight Members of Parliament for their courage, high senses of moral decency and commitment to the protection of the family and family values, to lay the bill before Parliament, as well as the leadership of the Christian for strongly coming out against it.

The leadership called on the eminent professors who had risen against the anti-LGBTQI bill to reconsider their stance by engaging in serious soul searching and God's guidance.

"We uphold the principles of constitutional democracy and the guarantees for freedoms, we also believe that perverse freedoms that draw a nation into destruction should be outlawed, discouraged or legally prevented and call on well-meaning Ghanaians to give their full support to the promotion of proper human sexual rights bill."

The Joint Leadership is made up of leaders of the Office of the National Chief Imam, National Council of Zongo Chiefs, Office of Alhus Sunnah Wal Jama'a, Ghana Ahmadiyya Musluns Community, Ghana Tijaniyyah Muslim Community, Ghana Shia Muslim community, The FMC, Ghana, The Ghana Muslim Mission, and COMOG.