Lawmakers urged to impose stiffer penalties for buggery

President of the Marcus Garvey Research Institute, Baba Heru Ishakamusa Menelik, is pushing for tougher penalties for persons who breach the provision in the Offences Against the Person Act, which deals with buggery.

Menelik was making a submission yesterday to a joint select committee of Parliament reviewing the Sexual Offences Act, the Offences Against the Person Act, and related laws.

Raising the question of whether homosexuality was a "normal and safe lifestyle that society should accept", the head of the Marcus Garvey Research Institute argued that there were deliberate attempts by pro-homosexual groups to reclassify homosexuality as a "normal way of life".

He charged that pro-homosexual activists have "deliberately ignored" studies which indicate that homosexual men spread HIV rapidly.

Menelik contended that homosexuality is anti-life, noting that "this type of union will not produce children for the regeneration of life and society".

Further, he noted that children who are raised in same-sex unions are more likely to engage in a homosexual and lesbian lifestyle.

"Studies consistently show men in homosexual relationships having multiple short-term partners," Menelik claimed, arguing that the lifestyle is "a sickness, an aberration, and as such, affected individuals must seek professional help".