ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Texas Kadiri Moro stood in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Accra on Thursday, dressed in short pink Speedos and a pink polo shirt. Accompanied by trumpet players, carrying a banner with slogans including, “Why should a society of evildoers judge others?” and “Justice begins where inequality ends!” he marched across the Ghanaian capital in a one-man protest against a highly controversial bill which targets members of the LGBTQ+ community and their supporters.
Moro is an unusual figure amid the LGBTQ+ rights activists in the coastal West African nation.
He is heterosexual, married to a woman, and a father of six. He is a teacher. And he is a practicing Muslim. Yet for months he has been conducting solo demonstrations against the bill, which criminalizes members of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as its supporters, including promotion and funding of related activities and public displays of affection. It could send some people to prison for more than a decade.
The bill was passed by Ghana ’s parliament earlier this year but has been challenged in the Supreme Court.
It has not yet been signed into law by President Nana Akufo-Addo, who cited ongoing proceedings. But he refused to reject it either.
“There are so many issues about rights" when it comes to the bill, Moro told The Associated Press.
“Homosexuality does not affect anyone," Moro said. “We have activities that people are doing in the country that are worse than homosexual activities,” he added, citing adultery as an example. The parliament, he said, should be more concerned with “other crimes and pollution.”
The bill has sparked condemnation from rights groups and some in the international community who have been concerned about similar efforts by other African governments.
Sponsors of the bill have said it seeks to protect children and people who are victims of abuse.
Gay sex is already illegal in Ghana, carrying a three-year prison sentence, but the new bill could imprison people for more than a decade for activities including public displays of affection and promotion and funding of LGBTQ+ activities.
Since he began his protests, Moro has lost his job, has not received any assistance from the LGBTQ+ community, and has become a target of “very hostile attacks from the Muslim community," he says.
But he is determined to continue. For him, it is about battling injustice.
“I know I'm doing something that God is asking me to do,” he said.
To point out the hypocrisy of the bill, Moro carried a petition to the Parliament asking the government to withdraw foreign missions from countries where homosexuality is legal, if they find it “filthy,” he said.
At the entrance to Parliament House, Kate Addo, Parliament's director of communications, received Moro's petition on behalf of the speaker. She said she was pleased with his initiative.
“We live in a democratic country where what people do in their bedrooms is not to be anyone’s concern,” Addo said. "However, we are also regulated by law.”
Even though Ghana's president delayed signing the bill into law, activists said that the debate by itself triggered an increase in physical and psychological violence against LGBTQ+ people.
Joseph Kobla Wemakor, the executive director of Human Rights Reporters Ghana, said that "abuse, both psychologically and physically against members of the community has skyrocketed" since the bill has been introduced.
“The moment people hear that you are part of this, the LGBTQ+, you are an enemy," Wekamor said. “They are looking forward to hurting you, even lynching you, killing you.”
They are "forgetting that we are all humans,” he added.
“It takes one man to change the world," he said. “And if he has started something like that, other people will follow, because it (the bill) is a wrongdoing.”
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Francis Kokutse, The Associated Press