Was President John Mills Anti-LGBT?

The draft makers emphazise, that they are just following the path put forth by former presidents from President Kuffour (sic) to John Fifi Evans Atta Mills and Nana Akufo-Addo – the draft makers for whatever reasons decided to “forget” Rawlings (1981 – 2001) and Mahama (2012 – 2017).

On the piece on President John Fiifi Evans Atta Mills, the draft makers argue:

Additionally, the late President J.E.A. Mills is credited to assertively communicate the position of Ghanaians on the issue of LGBTTQQIAAP+, when on 2nd November, 2011, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, during an interactive session with the media at Osu Castle, intimated the policy of Britain to the review its aid to countries that persecute homosexuals or fail to respect gay rights.

Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021, page 2

They then quote Mills’ famous “We Will Not Support Homos” speech of November 2, 2011.

What did the draft makers exclude?
The background of the speech was Prime Minister Cameron’s call for the introduction of “proper human rights” concerning homosexuality in countries like Ghana on Oct. 30, 2011.

But lets rewind so we get a more nuanced picture of Mills.

On July 2011, the Ghanaian Times published an article proclaiming the Mills-Administration was working on a bill to criminalise homosexuality.

On July 15, 2011, the Daily Guide published their article titled “Mills Wild Over Gays”. In the article, the reporter narrated, how President Mills personally called the editor at the Ghanaian Times to complain about the falsehood of the story.

The adding of pressure from then Prime Minister David Cameron and Mills’ unclear stance of July 2011, forced him to publicly denounce to ever legalise homosexuality on Nov. 2, 2011.

Let us move forward to December 20, 2011, when the Constitution Review Commission presented their findings to President Mills.

They talked about bettering the law for citizens with dual citizenship, to make the constitution more clear on discrimination, such as changing sex to gender.

But the Commission also talked about homosexuality. They discussed some clashes between the one of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and that of the Banjul Charter, and clashes between the law used to prosecute male homosexuals and the Ghanaian Constitution.

The Review Commission proposed the following recommendation:

129. The Commission recommends that the legality or otherwise of homosexuality be decided by the Supreme Court if the matter comes before the Court.

Mills agreed with the recommendation.

Now it is time to actually look at the speech of Nov. 2, 2011. Mills does not in any shape or form condone a bill targeting LGBTTQQIAAP+.

Mills argued that the government would “never initiate or support any attempt to legalise homosexuality in the country.”

So he will not legalise it, but it does not automatically imply, that Mills intended to criminalise it further.

Mills hardly had any choice in 2011. The tension was mounting, and the media and people demanded Mills to take a public stand on this issue was ubiquitous. I was in Ghana when all this happened. I recall the sense of a witch hunt in the air. But Mills did nothing to criminalise homosexuality.

To sum up
At no point does Mills try to criminalise homosexuality. There is no evidence, that Mills was in favour of the content of the current bill against LGBTTQQIAAP+.

Mills denounced Cameron’s involvement, but Mills had monhts before berated a local journalist for insinurating that his administration wanted to criminalise homosexuality.

Even after Mills’ “We will not support homos” speech, he did not try to criminalise homosexuality. Instead he listened to the words of the Constitution Review Commission, who argued that the current criminal offences act used to prosecute male homosexuals could be in violation of the Ghanaian Constitution and human rights articles. He did not disagree nor tried to change the Constitution to facilitate a possible criminalisation.

Thereby, he acknowledged the possibility that the Supreme Court could deem part of the criminal offences act unconstitutional.

To make Mills post-mortem appear as a white evangelical hate group supporter against the LGBTTQQIAAP+ has no merit.