Ghana’s Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed two preemptory challenges to a new “gay propaganda” law unanimously approved by the country’s Parliament and awaiting signature by the president.

The Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill imposes a prison sentence of up to five years for the “willful promotion, sponsorship, or support of LGBTQ+ activities.” The West African nation already mandates a three-year prison term for same-sex activity, a holdover from British colonial rule that was upheld earlier this year by the same court.

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Ghana’s top court upholds law that makes gay sex a crime
The government is considering a bill to make the punishment for being gay even harsher.

The two cases were dismissed on a technicality. Justice Avril Lovelace-Johnson of the seven-member panel court said in the televised ruling that the challenges were premature.

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“Until there’s presidential assent, there is no act,” the court ruled, adding both cases were “unanimously dismissed.”

President Nana Akufo-Addo has delayed signing the bill pending the court’s ruling on the law’s constitutionality. Their decision did not answer that question.

Opponents of the law say that in addition to the moral implications of outlawing support for the LGBTQ+ community, Ghana’s economic well-being is at stake if the bill is signed, citing billions of dollars in international trade and financing at stake.

A report from Ghana’s finance ministry warned the new law could jeopardize $3.8 billion in World Bank financing and threaten a $3-billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund to address a long-running economic crisis in the country.

Calling homosexuality an import from the West, Ghanaian presidential candidate Mahamudu Bawumia said in June, “We will never accept it no matter the consequences. We will defend our values. And we will let the world know, we will not change our values for them.”

The Human Rights Campaign has called the legislation “a cruel bill that violates the fundamental rights of LGBTQI+ people and allies throughout Ghana.”

“Every single lawmaker who voted to pass this bill is wrongly using their power to strip away the basic humanity of the people they are supposed to represent,” said David Stacy, HRC’s vice president of government affairs following passage of the bill in Parliament earlier this year.

The advocacy group noted that LGBTQ+ people face high levels of discrimination in Ghana, citing incidents of violence and discrimination against queer Ghanaians in the last few years.

“In February 2021, police raided and shut down a LGBTQ+ resource center. In May that same year, 21 LGBTQ+ activists were arrested during a human rights assembly in Ho, Ghana, and have not yet been released. LGBTQI+ people throughout the country have faced evictions and various other forms of systematic discrimination,” a press release stated.

Ghana joins a growing list of African nations outlawing LGBTQ+ identity.

Uganda’s notorious Kill the Gays law, signed in 2023, is the most egregious example, with penalties up to and including death for some same-sex behavior.

More recently, the military junta ruling Burkina Faso, Ghana’s neighbor to the north, said that homosexual acts are now an offense punishable by law.

“Henceforth homosexuality and associated practices will be punished by the law,” Justice Minister Edasso Rodrigue Bayala said in July, according to the international news organization Agence France-Presse.

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