The Ghana Football Association has received a letter from player Kevin Prince Boateng on his decision to resign from the senior national team, the Black Stars.
According to Kevin, the physical demands of playing for both club and country at high levels are taking a toll on his health.
It will not take more than a simple understanding of the arguments being made by several Ghanaians and our own President-John Atta Mills to acknowledge that, in fact, the Professor with majority of Ghanaians are confusing morals with law. It happens a lot especially when your moral values are in direct conflict with a legal standing.
The law is complex and no matter how it is construed, its interpretation can be stretched to give rights when the actual lawmakers may not have intended to do so.
I have laughed heavily several times for hearing people claiming homosexuals have NO legal rights in Ghana because the constitution of Ghana does not expressly give them any. What most of us have to realize is that, the law does not only give rights expressly, certain times, they are implied.
I am not an expert on Ghanaian laws but still have enough knowledge to make this simple deduction.
The legal argument that homosexuals have no rights in Ghana and their actions constitute a criminality has mostly been founded on Chapter 6, article 104 of the Ghanaian Criminal Code which prohibits “unnatural carnal knowledge”. This is defined to include consensual sexual intercourse between men.
Notably, the true effect of this clause is that, it encourages discrimination and persecution against homosexuals on the basis of their identity and consensual sexual behaviour.
The above law which subjects homosexuals to discrimination is a criminal code, meaning the constitution of Ghana is supreme to it in terms of legal hierarchy.
Article 17 of the constitution of Ghana however guarantees the right to freedom from discrimination. What this means is that, under the constitution you cannot discriminate against anyone for being homosexual (identity and sexual behaviour) whiles the criminal code says the direct opposite- ‘homosexuality’ by a stretch of the law is illegal.
