Gail Alexan­der

Gov­ern­ment should demon­strate its se­ri­ous­ness about "the pol­i­tics of the past" by re­peal­ing a law which dis­crim­i­nates against peo­ple, based on gen­der and sex, says In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor He­len Dray­ton She called for a con­science vote from leg­is­la­tors on that is­sue and al­so on the death penal­ty.

Dray­ton was speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day's Sen­ate de­bate on the 123-clause Chil­dren Bill, de­signed to up­grade pro­tec­tion of T&T's young­sters. Say­ing ho­mo­sex­u­als and bi-sex­u­als ex­ist­ed in T&T, Dray­ton said sex­u­al am­bi­gu­i­ty might man­i­fest in pu­ber­ty and the gen­der and sex of a per­son might not nec­es­sar­i­ly be the same.

Cit­ing an "in­hu­mane" dis­crim­i­na­tion" of fel­low cit­i­zens on the grounds of gen­der and sex, Dray­ton said: "While I ap­pre­ci­ate there are peo­ple who hold en­trenched views, based on re­li­gious and bib­li­cal dog­ma as well as per­son­al val­ues, and while I re­spect all sin­cere views I don't be­lieve that the state should con­tin­ue to dis­crim­i­nate against thou­sands of cit­i­zens... that dis­crim­i­na­tion is based on gen­der and sex.

"I rec­om­mend to the Gov­ern­ment that it demon­strates its se­ri­ous­ness about the pol­i­tics of the past-a dif­fer­ent" pol­i­tics-and be brave and be strong and al­low a con­science vote on the re­peal of the rel­e­vant acts...that" same sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty which is for­bid­den by law and is done by many het­ero­sex­u­al cou­ples in mar­ried life... It re­al­ly has no place in our law­books."

Ad­vo­cat­ing a con­science vote on the death penal­ty, Dray­ton called for bills on the is­sue to be is­sued sev­er­al months in ad­vance to al­low the pub­lic to have dis­cus­sions on it. She said there should be a spe­cial me­dia pan­el where cit­i­zens could call in views and re­li­gious bod­ies would have op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­gage mem­bers in dis­cus­sion.

Dray­ton said a state­ment from the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion or oth­er bod­ies should be read in­to Par­lia­ment's Hansard record be­fore de­bate on such a con­tentious is­sues. She added: "I hope such a rec­om­men­da­tion will be con­sid­ered. Stop dis­crim­i­nat­ing against our cit­i­zens and let the bill to re­peal acts which dis­crim­i­nate, based on gen­der and sex, be a con­science vote."

Dray­ton ex­pressed con­cern about as­pects of the bill in­volv­ing a mar­riage at age 12. She said chil­dren have a right to a child­hood and mar­riage at 12 was a mat­ter that need­ed to be se­ri­ous­ly ad­dressed.