On Sat­ur­day the Guardian pub­lished a news item un­der the head­line "Re­li­gious groups speak out on Govt gen­der agen­da" and on Mon­day, "RC Arch­bish­op urges T&T to re­ject same-sex unions." In both cas­es the sub­ject mat­ter is in essence re­port­ed as "gay rights" though the for­mer al­so deals with abor­tion. Ac­tu­al­ly the sub­ject mat­ter is hu­man rights.

In the for­mer piece, we have an un­holy "union" of re­li­gions-com­bin­ing forces to tack­le what they be­lieve is a com­mon en­e­my. I sup­pose there is strength in num­bers. Any mi­nor­i­ty group fight­ing for their rights can at­test to that, right? In the lat­ter, the mes­sage is to his Catholic con­gre­ga­tion and the coun­try as a whole.

To all of these peo­ple the is­sue at hand is one of their re­li­gions first and hu­man rights sec­ond. They do not see the is­sue for what it re­al­ly is-hu­man rights. Luck­i­ly, we live in a sec­u­lar state and are sup­posed to be a sec­u­lar so­ci­ety; gay rights have noth­ing to do with re­li­gion, and every­thing to do with hu­man rights, as is slav­ery, or the vote for women.

Those who wish to be Chris­tians, Hin­dus, Mus­lims and all the very many and myr­i­ad sects that ex­ist in just those three re­li­gions are free to prac­tise their re­li­gion and be­lieve in their be­liefs, what­ev­er any oth­er per­son thinks of the ve­rac­i­ty of their par­tic­u­lar sect. Equal­ly, each and every in­di­vid­ual has the right to not be­lieve in any re­li­gion, whether they be­lieve in gods or a cre­ator, or do not.

Re­li­gious groups there­fore have every right to, and one can even un­der­stand this giv­en their par­tic­u­lar dog­ma, lob­by for the "val­ues" of their par­tic­u­lar re­li­gion. These are hu­man rights en­joyed by those in­clined to be re­li­gious, who to be sure would have a lot to say were it not so. What they can­not do, and must nev­er be al­lowed to do, is to foist those "val­ues" or their own brand of dog­ma on the rest of the coun­try.

Not a sin­gle re­li­gion in this coun­try has any claim what­ev­er on the moral­i­ty of hu­mankind, and his­to­ry will at­test to that. Where is the moral val­ue in forc­ing mar­riage on girls who are bare­ly be­yond pu­ber­ty? The pa­per re­ports that Arch­bish­op Har­ris "warned that T&T would be go­ing down 'a dan­ger­ous path' if same-sex mar­riages were made le­gal." A dan­ger­ous path to whom? Was this state­ment qual­i­fied, fleshed out in any way? From the re­port it is not pos­si­ble to say, but as re­port­ed it is with­out any sub­stance what­ev­er, an emp­ty and mis­lead­ing state­ment of no val­ue what­ev­er.

In the gov­ern­ment of a sec­u­lar so­ci­ety, where the equal rights of all are recog­nised, no holy book has any bear­ing on the mat­ter. This clear­ly and ob­vi­ous­ly must be so. It is safe to say that not a sin­gle one of our Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment has been vot­ed in­to of­fice based on a plat­form of their re­li­gion. Hu­man rights, and moral­i­ty, are evolv­ing as hu­man be­ings be­come ed­u­cat­ed, are freed from the dog­ma of re­li­gion and are able to think freely.

Those en­trust­ed with law-mak­ing must do so al­so and pro­tect the rights of all cit­i­zens-in­clud­ing mi­nori­ties. As far as same-sex mar­riage goes, it should not ex­ist in that clear­ly prej­u­diced ter­mi­nol­o­gy. There should on­ly be mar­riage, be it be­tween a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, or a man and a man. The right to choose is their right.

Bri­an Haskell

West­moor­ings