Den­zil Mo­hammed

Thank God for in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors. (Did I just say that? For­give me; it's an ex­pres­sion.) From what tran­spired last month in the de­bate on the Chil­dren's Bill, it is patent that on­ly the ones void of the trap­pings of po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion were brave enough to speak out-and to do so ra­tio­nal­ly-on the top­ic of equal rights for all cit­i­zens.

The in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors made an his­toric stand by ab­stain­ing from vot­ing on the bill be­cause (i) it per­mits two mi­nors to have het­ero­sex­u­al sex but not ho­mo­sex­u­al sex and (ii) it fails to re­peal laws (such as the Mus­lim, Hin­du and Or­isha Mar­riage Acts) that al­low mar­riage at ages as young as 12 (News­day, May 27).

Sen­a­tor He­len Dray­ton, among oth­ers, went on not sim­ply to make note of the fact that T&T's laws still dis­crim­i­nate against and crim­i­nalise gays (much more so than oth­er coun­tries in­clud­ing Ja­maica) but ac­tu­al­ly to say that such "pol­i­tics of the past...re­al­ly has no place in our law books."

Per­haps it was the late hour (4.30 am) to which the de­bate dragged on but the sen­a­to­r­i­al stu­por per­sist­ed as Ms Dray­ton's ap­peals fell on deaf po­lit­i­cal ears. PNM Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi urged that "they should de­bate oth­er con­cerns an­oth­er day."

In­deed, with all the calls for "dis­cus­sion," "de­bate," "con­sul­ta­tion" and "bring­ing the is­sue to the pub­lic," there are few ra­tio­nal voic­es on this top­ic. And they are ei­ther not heard as loud­ly as the oth­er, ir­ra­tional side or they are dis­missed for con­sid­er­a­tion on "an­oth­er day."

Protest­ing what?

In fact, a May 13 Sun­day Guardian ed­i­to­r­i­al point­ed out that more than a decade ago the late Prof Ju­lian Ken­ny, an­oth­er in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor, not­ed the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Amend­ment Bill pro­claimed in 2001 didn't make pro­vi­sions for sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion. That bill, too, came up for de­bate at an un­god­ly hour: 2 am.

To­day, Min­is­ter Ver­na St Rose-Greaves of­ten seems like the lone voice of rea­son in the crowd of eva­sive politi­cians like Ver­non De Li­ma, deputy chair­man of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), who have opt­ed for a cop-out (ex­cuse the pun) by say­ing the de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty needs more "con­sul­ta­tions" or should be put up for a ref­er­en­dum.

Hazel Brown, co-or­di­na­tor of the Net­work of Non-Gov­ern­men­tal Or­gan­i­sa­tions for the Ad­vance­ment of Women, has wagged her fin­ger at un­e­d­u­cat­ed pas­tors from crafti­ly ti­tled church­es like "Name of Je­sus Christ Fel­low­ship" protest­ing with signs say­ing things like "Unit­ed Na­tion (sic) is wrong." The Guardian re­port­ed that the pas­tors "er­ro­neous­ly be­lieved the Gov­ern­ment was about to pass leg­is­la­tion grant­i­ng same-sex cou­ples the right to mar­ry."

And then there's the lit­tle group that could: Caiso (Coali­tion Ad­vo­cat­ing for In­clu­sion of Sex­u­al Ori­en­ta­tion). T&T's gay-rights ad­vo­ca­cy group has been qui­et­ly walk­ing in­to gov­ern­ment min­istry of­fices, UWI, Par­lia­ment, UN Hu­man Rights Coun­cil in Gene­va, the Ital­ian Par­lia­ment, Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States and oth­er places where it can teach, learn and pro­mote ra­tio­nal dis­cus­sion on the top­ic.

Over the past few weeks, Caiso has been lob­by­ing for sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion to be cov­ered by the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Bill as it cov­ers race and re­li­gion, etc. But the deaf­en­ing si­lence from those ca­pa­ble of chang­ing the bill has been matched on­ly by the rau­cous cho­rus from re­li­gious peo­ple who have in­un­dat­ed the press with their views.

"No such thing as 'same-sex mar­riage.'" "Church doesn't con­done lifestyle." "They're threat to fam­i­ly val­ues." "Gay rights? What about God's Law?" "Prof: Ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty a dead end" (speak­ing not at an aca­d­e­m­ic meet­ing but a Pen­te­costal as­sem­bly).

Who de­fines mar­riage: a god, the uni­verse, or peo­ple? Do gays threat­en fam­i­ly val­ues? In the same way our mur­der rate does? Our ram­pant do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and child abuse? Our en­dem­ic drink­ing prob­lem? Who's god? The Hin­du ones?

Church­es in tents

No one lob­bies for any­thing un­less one has some­thing to gain. For the gay com­mu­ni­ty, that's a lit­er­al and sym­bol­ic procla­ma­tion that they're not crim­i­nals, anom­alies or non-en­ti­ties. For the church, both the an­cient ed­i­fices and the white tents in car parks, it's pub­lic­i­ty for self-pro­claimed pas­tors from crafti­ly ti­tled church­es with bad­ly spelled signs, and it's mon­ey: con­gre­gat­ing and gal­vanis­ing peo­ple in­to lob­by­ing for a "cause" where lob­by­ing costs mon­ey.

The sim­ple truths re­main un­al­tered by all the threats of Sodom and Go­mor­rah, le­gal­i­sa­tion of bes­tial­i­ty and boys learn­ing bal­let. De­crim­i­nal­is­ing ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty will nei­ther make peo­ple gay nor cause mas­sive hur­ri­canes. Fight­ing against it just sets us back on the scale of progress and hu­man rights, and gives us yet an­oth­er source of in­ter­na­tion­al em­bar­rass­ment.

A ref­er­en­dum for mi­nor­i­ty rights has nev­er been a good idea. That we have a track record of putting off this is­sue for an­oth­er day or an­oth­er decade shows no gov­ern­ment is will­ing to take an his­toric lead­er­ship role as the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors have. And 'pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions' can hap­pen on­ly if the pub­lic is in­formed so sim­ply talk­ing about hav­ing con­sul­ta­tions is not good enough; you need to ed­u­cate the peo­ple.

So it's time for the head­lines to read some­thing else, for the sto­ries to quote some­one else, for the "truths" and pre­dic­tions to have a ra­tio­nal ba­sis. It's time for more peo­ple to speak out. Let's get some bal­ance to the ar­gu­ment.