Islamic scholar calls for one voice to get presidential assent on anti-gay bill

– It will take a common voice from the Christian and Muslim communities in Ghana to get a presidential assent for the Anti-Gay Bill recently passed by parliament to become law, Sheikh Dr. Al-Hussein Zakaria, an Islamic Scholar, has posited.

The Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill is yet to be signed into law by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo despite being passed unanimously by both sides of the legislative arm of government.

The Presidency has cited pending lawsuits against the Bill in court as reason the President is unable to sign the Bill into law

However, Dr. Zakaria believes the two dominant religions in the country could force the President to sign the Bill with a common voice rather than the current individualistic approach to the advocacy

“Get Christians and Muslims together one day rising up to say we want the Bill passed and it will be passed,” he told the Ghana News Agency in an interview on the side lines of a training for religious leaders on violent extremism at Ejisu in the Ashanti Region.

He said the reluctance on the part of the President in signing the Bill into law was because Christians and Muslims had not come together to demand for the right thing to be done with one voice.

According to him, if the two religions did not work together for the common good of the citizenry, politicians would continue to relax in addressing pertinent issues affecting the very people who put them in office.

“It is our collective responsibility as Christians and Muslims to get the Bill passed into law and we cannot achieve this without working together for a common cause,” he insisted.

The Islamic Scholar further stated that, “If we have common concerns, why do we want to work for the results independently from each other?

He said it was important to build coalitions when advocating for things that were beneficial to the entire population, saying that approaching such issues individually often yielded little results.

As moral voices of society, it would be a huge disservice to Ghanaians if the leadership of the two religions fail to get the Bill passed to uphold Ghanaian family values as a people, he opined.