#SpeakingOut – Mekkin it legal don’t mek it right

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

In an article which appeared in the Weekend Nation on January 6, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the recent challenge to the Sexual Offences Act, Senior Counsel Douglas Mendes, is quoted as commenting that “people should be able to express themselves sexually in the way they wish as long as there is consent and they are not exploiting young people”.

He is further quoted as saying that “the law on serious indecency was struck down altogether because it made everything that consenting adults did with each other – whether it was same-sex couples or heterosexual adults – unlawful”.

Family-Faith-Freedom, Barbados recognises that the Supreme Court has the right to interpret the Constitution and decide what is legal or illegal in the eyes of the judiciary, but we remain resolute in our conviction that “Mekkin it legal don’t mek it right”. As a faith-based organisation, we choose to
uphold the biblical teaching that the act of buggery is sinful, and it will remain a sin in the eyes of God irrespective of what the legislators rule.

It is a scientific fact that gay men contract AIDS at a higher rate than any other group and that AIDS and Monkeypox spread fastest among gay populations, clearly demonstrating the health risks posed by the gay lifestyle. We remain very concerned about the recent spread of the transgender philosophy in the more developed countries and the impact that this and other foreign ideological perspectives promoted globally by LGBTQ activists will ultimately have on the cultural landscape of Barbados and the likely trend towards greater social acceptance of sex between men with the removal of the buggery law.

We are equally concerned that further cultural changes will be legislated in due course which will challenge the cultural and religious norm that defines marriage as an institution between one man and one woman, and that other lawyers from foreign jurisdictions will ultimately seek to render the teaching of hallowed scriptural principles illegal in Barbados as they have successfully done in other countries, making it impossible to teach our children the fundamental tenets of our faith.

Perhaps the most disturbing consequence of the recent High Court ruling is that the court appears to have struck down Section 12 of the Sexual Offences Act, which criminalises an act of serious indecency with or towards an adult or child. Recently, under this legislation, there have been significant sentences for unseemly acts committed against children, making it very important for addressing such actions, whether or not there is sexual penetration. Attorneys in Barbados have already had to resort to the CCJ to determine whether a male can commit an act of rape on another male. Will it now be necessary for Barbados to resort again to the CCJ to determine what constitutes an act of serious indecency, and what options remain for the protection of persons, whether adult or child?

The law courts will continue to determine what the law of the land allows and what it disallows, but the laws of God are immutable. “Mekking it legal don’t mek it right.”

Family-Faith-Freedom, Barbados

Hutson Inniss