#BTColumn – Sexual orientation and the Barbados Charter

by Ralph Jemmott

The Barbados Charter 2021 is apparently a precursor to a proposed new constitution for the Republic of Barbados. It outlines a number of rights and freedoms as a statement of social ideals, most of which are not, in themselves, highly problematic.

Few right-thinking Barbadians would want to promote distinctions based on social class, sex or gender and we would all, for the most part, want to promote a more equitable, just and inclusive society. However, even within these ostensibly nonproblematic areas, truth be told, most Barbadians discriminate in one way or another, if ever so slightly.

Discrimination is, in itself, not a bad thing. It depends on what one is discriminating against and whether it denies another person’s right to be treated fairly. For example, one might want to discriminate against a person whose language is persistently obscene, because it offends one’s personal sensibility. Some form of social discrimination is endemic in most class-based, capitalist societies. Barbados is still a very class conscious society. In fact, some consider class to be the single greatest divider, eclipsing historic race and complexional differences, which are derivatives of race.

Speaking in Parliament on a Resolution to take note of and approve the Charter of Barbados 2021, Independent Senator the Rev. John Rodgers called for ‘serious discussion’ on the issue of ‘sexual discrimination.’ Sexual orientation conceived as an intrinsic right enshrined in the Charter may prove extremely problematic. Barbados is a society that, in spite of or because of its profligacy, still carries a Calvinist puritanical strain in its culture. Think of the word ‘sin’ and Barbadians generally think of forms of individual and societal sexual proclivities such as adultery, fornication, whore-mongering, prostitution or overt homosexuality.

Infelicities related to business and commerce invariably escape the censure of sin or, in Bajan terms, ‘wutlessness’. In fact, in some quarters, it is considered smart to cheat in business if you win and escape the courts. Take the lawyer who puts his client’s money to his own uses.

That strain of Pentecostalism that proclaims fealty to the divine word of scripture is replete with condemnations of the ‘sins of the flesh.’ It is particularly condemnatory of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, twin cities that God, in his infinite vengefulness, chose to destroy.

A lot depends on how one views homosexuality. There are persons who genuinely struggle with same-sex attraction and not because they are intrinsically bad or wicked or wilfully perverse. Some of it is physiological, hormonal or chromosomal. I once read that most gay men show a deformity in the frontal cortex of the brain. That would seem to suggest a physiological cause of sexual inversion. Who did sin – this man or his parents that he was born gay? There are abnormalities in nature. For some persons, they become a vice and lead to sexually predatory behaviour. All sexually predatory behaviour is condemnable, gay or straight.

Someone once observed that sex without love is the greatest form of cruelty. However, sexual animalism is built into nature. That is how most species reproduce themselves. The moral imperative as homo sapiens is always to endeavour to sublimate the animal instincts that may derive from an excess of testosterone or estrogen.

We are not just animals. We live in a far more enlightened age from the time of Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas when homosexuality was described as “the vice that dare not speak its name”. Now they say it is a vice that won’t keep its mouth shut. People are boldly proclaiming their ‘gaiety’ as in many parts of the world. Gay Pride openly parades itself in the streets. Late in his Presidency, Barack Obama himself admitted that he had ‘evolved’ on the issue of gay marriage, which he agreed to sanction.
Some question why sexual orientation is included in the Charter of Rights in the first place.

Unlike Jamaica, where homophobia was very strong, Barbados, as far as I recall, has never persecuted or prosecuted its homosexual and lesbian minorities.

In fact, Barbadians, generally speaking, have displayed an amazing tolerance of such behaviour. A Queen of the B’s show was held in Barbados at a time when that kind of display would have been unthinkable in Jamaica. No one in Barbados went around singing Batty boy fie die. We sniggered and sucked our teeth, but few threatened.

One reason proffered by the sexual orientation rights defenders is that we have to keep pace with modernity, with the outside world. The question arises – at what expense to our own values? Or are they no longer of worth? Do we have to become as liberal as San Francisco or Canada or anywhere in North America where churches marry gay people and where the priest is himself or herself married to another man or woman? Would this be good or bad for Barbados? What are the implications for the kind of people that we are? In the years to come, how are we going to conceptualise ourselves existentially in the world? When did our values suddenly become old-fashioned? As Walter Edey recalls, in 2016, then Prime Minister Stuart posed a question pertaining to Barbadian values.

He asked: “What (values) do we want to keep, reclaim or reject?” Barbadians must decide.
How far would the rights of gay, transgender, multi-gender persons extend? If, for example, as a house-owner, I refuse to rent my apartment, room or cottage to a gay couple, would their rights under the charter supersede my right to stand on my moral principle? Could they sue me if, personally, I find homosexuality offensive? This came up in the United States where a pastry chef refused to make a cake for a gay couple displaying a gay kiss on the cake.

In Barbados, any administration that appears to be pushing sexual orientation as some kind of absolute right will suffer the political consequences. Coming from an ultra-liberal elite minority that appears to want to push its will down the throats of a recalcitrant majority will create a very adverse political reaction.

On this, we must think deeply and not give into hasty, poorly thought-out decisions. Much could be at stake in the new Republic.

Ralph Jemmott is a respected retired educator.