President seeking consensus on controversial amendment
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President seeking consensus on controversial amendment
Catholic Bishop urges support for current wordingBy Patrick Denny
Stabroek News
January 24, 2001
Faced with mounting criticism from sections of the religious community over the amendment to the constitution banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, President Bharrat Jagdeo is to meet representatives of the parliamentary parties today for discussion on the issue.
According to a release from Freedom House, the President will urge the representatives to further amend the legislation-which he has not yet assented to-to address the concerns of the religious community.
The meeting is scheduled for 10:00 am at the Office of the President. But up to late yesterday, Stabroek News was unable to ascertain the response of the opposition parties to the request by President Jagdeo for the meeting.
However, on Monday, PNC executive member Raphael Trotman had said that his party was prepared to review the issue in an effort to resolve it, but that it was making no commitment to amend it. The Alliance for Guyana, when contacted, had not yet discussed the request.
President Jagdeo's action was a consequence of the commitment he gave to representatives of the Christian, Hindu, and Muslim faiths that he would not assent to the bill containing the amendment until it was discussed with the various political parties with a view to amending the offending section of the legislation. The legislation was approved by a 55-0 vote by the National Assembly on January 4, 2001. The amendment was based on a recommendation of the Constitution Reform Commission (CRC) which had received memoranda and oral evidence from organisations and private individuals on the various aspects of the constitution that should be amended.
It amends Article 149(2) of the constitution and defines discriminatory to mean: "affording different treatment to different persons attributable wholly or mainly to their or their parents' or guardians' respective description by race, place of origin, political opinion, colour, creed, age, disability, marital status, sex, gender, language, sexual orientation, birth, social class, pregnancy, religion, conscience, belief or culture whereby persons of one such description are subjected to disabilities or restrictions to which other persons of the same or another such description are not made subject or are accorded privileges or advantages which are not afforded to other persons of the same or another such description."
The religious groups which called on President Jagdeo to rescind the amendment were represented on the CRC. The representatives were Rev Keith Haley then president of the Guyana Council of Churches and attorneys-at-law, Vidyanand Persaud and Shahabudeen McDoom for the Hindu and Muslim communities respectively.
Contacted yesterday, Persaud recalled that the issue was raised in the oral and written presentation before the CRC by the Private Sector Commission in the context of the treatment of disadvantaged groups.
Persaud recalled that the discussion on the issue took place in the context of human rights and that the CRC was guided by advice from a Canadian expert and the references to the specific issue in the South African and other constitutions.
Persaud said that the opposition to the amendment was misconceived as the amendment would not legalise homosexuality.
Head of the Roman Catholic Church in Guyana, Bishop Benedict Singh, in a pastoral letter to the Catholic Diocese urged support for the amendment as worded.
In the letter, which is to be read in Roman Catholic churches throughout Guyana on Sunday, Bishop Singh noted that at issue in the controversy is not "discrimination against homosexuality but discrimination against persons who are homosexuals."
He urged his flock not to "allow ourselves to react to the attempts of others to bring more justice to our society with fear or irrational emotion...
"We need to remind ourselves that as Christians we are called on to reach out to all minorities and especially to those who find themselves in a minority they did not choose."
Bishop Singh noted too that while there were some who chose their sexual orientation and were accountable for it "there is strong evidence that their orientation is fixed early in life (in many cases before birth), and it is totally outside their control. Experience has taught that no therapy or counselling can change it."
Homosexuals, the Catholic prelate said, have the poorest of self images. "...realising that they are despised by others, they have learned to despise themselves. Many live in constant fear of being found out by their contemporaries."
Bishop Singh reminded his congregation that their homosexual neighbours "are our brothers and sisters, children with us of the one Father. "We do not show them that we regard them as brothers and sisters if we do nothing to remove the discrimination which they undoubtedly suffer."
Bishop Singh also addressed the claims by other sections of the religious community that the amendment, among other things, would open the floodgates to all kinds of corrupt and ungodly sexual practices.
"Undoubtedly, if this amendment stands as it is and its effects are worked out, we Christians will have to define and proclaim our beliefs and moral standards with regard to sexuality and we will not fear to do so."
Bishop Singh asserted that Christians believed that the intimate sexual act should only be exercised between a man and woman joined in the unbreakable union of marriage, and were enjoined to "actively promote the values of the marriage and the family among people of every race and religion and sexual orientation."
But he observed that "our support for marriage and the family is not helped by discriminating against any person. It is not sufficient to restrain from active discrimination. We have to show others that we love and respect them as persons. For these reasons, Christians should not oppose the wording of the amendment."
Taking the opposite view, the Guyana Islamic Trust (GIT) said that the Islamic community it represented "vociferously opposes the passing by the National Assembly, the section on sexual orientation" and called on "the President and members of the National Assembly to act immediately to have it revoked."
In a press release issued yesterday, GIT said that the section was "repugnant to not only to Islam but to all the major religions practiced in Guyana, which constitutes the vast majority of the Guyanese population. Furthermore such legislation, like many already enacted such as the Abortion and Lottery Bills, undermines the religious and moral conscience of our nation and invites the wrath of God on our already bewildered society." The GIT said that it was appealing to the members of the National Assembly "to respond to our call to revisit this section of the Bill in the interest of the moral, spiritual and material well-being of our entire nation."
Meanwhile, Maurice Henry, who was executive secretary to the CRC, recalled-after checking the tape recordings and minutes of the meeting-when the issue came up during a plenary session of the CRC on June 16, 1999 that there were no votes against and two members declined to vote on the issue. The members who declined to vote were Vincent Alexander, a representative of the PNC and McDoom. He confirmed too that Haley and Persaud were present at the meeting.
The campaign against the amendment has so far been led by the Guyana Council of Churches and various groups have added their voices to the debate. Anglican Bishop Randolph George had told Stabroek News on Monday that while he was yet to study the amendment in question, as Anglicans, "we would encourage the removal of the ban on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation". restrain from active discrimination. We have to show others that we love and respect them as persons. For these reasons, Christians should not oppose the wording of the amendment."
Taking the opposite view, the Guyana Islamic Trust (GIT) said that the Islamic community it represented "vociferously opposes the passing by the National Assembly, the section on sexual orientation" and called on "the President and members of the National Assembly to act immediately to have it revoked."
In a press release issued yesterday, GIT said that the section was "repugnant to not only to Islam but to all the major religions practiced in Guyana, which constitutes the vast majority of the Guyanese population. Furthermore such legislation, like many already enacted such as the Abortion and Lottery Bills, undermines the religious and moral conscience of our nation and invites the wrath of God on our already bewildered society." The GIT said that it was appealing to the members of the National Assembly "to respond to our call to revisit this section of the Bill in the interest of the moral, spiritual and material well-being of our entire nation."
Meanwhile, Maurice Henry, who was executive secretary to the CRC, recalled-after checking the tape recordings and minutes of the meeting-when the issue came up during a plenary session of the CRC on June 16, 1999, that there were no votes against and two members declined to vote on the issue. The members who declined to vote were Vincent Alexander, a representative of the PNC and McDoom. He confirmed too that Haley and Persaud were present at the meeting.
The campaign against the amendment has so far been led by the Guyana Council of Churches and various groups have added their voices to the debate. Anglican Bishop Randolph George had told Stabroek News on Monday that while he was yet to study the amendment in question, as Anglicans, "we would encourage the removal of the ban on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation"
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