Former Guyanese President says the country is ready for gay marriage

By Devina Samaroo (Guyana newsroom) and others

Amid renewed calls for the decriminalisation of same-sex intimacy, former President and Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo believes that the country is not ready for such major changes.

Jagdeo reminded that during related consultations, the public expressed disapproving sentiments towards the decriminalisation of same-sex intimacy.

“I don’t think the country, based on what our consultations show among large numbers of people, is ready for the same sex marriage and all of those things,” he posited during a press conference at his Office  on 24 May, 2017.

According to Jagdeo, there was a huge outcry about making same-sex intimacy a fundamental right.

“Because if it did, then the Marriage Act would have been illegal…and because of both sides – what the religious communities and NGOs came up with – we decided not to go to that level,” he stated.

However, he noted that Guyanese, based on feedback during those consultations, did not support discrimination on any grounds.

He also pointed out that the situation is similar to that of the death penalty matter.

“We’ve not had anyone executed since sometime in 1990s. So similarly, in the books, we have some of these provisions in place but people in practice, people have not been charged on the basis of these issues anymore,” he stated.

Nonetheless, Jagdeo said at some point in time, the laws must reflect the nation’ practices.

In this regard, he said he is prepared to engage in discussions with the government’s intention of ensuring persons are not discriminated against.

meanwhile another report from the Guyana Times said in part:

While the State has issued no official word on the issue, both Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Greenidge and Legal Affairs Minister Basil Williams have publicly stated that Government will be moving to hold a referendum to determine whether same-sex intimacy should be decriminalised.

However, the local LGBT community has objected to such a move, and on Wednesday called on the coalition administration to fulfil its manifesto promise of ensuring that the LGBT community and other minority groups are not discriminated against.

In fact, Executive Director of the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD), Joel Simpson, told reporters at a press conference that this referendum will not be supported by the three local LGBT groups — Guyana LGBT Coalition (Guyana Trans United), Guyana Rainbow Foundation (GuyBow), and SASOD; nor will it be supported by the Guyana Equality Forum, because the rights of a minority group should not be subjected to a popular vote.

“This divisive referendum will deepen the marginalisation and isolation of LGBT persons, as right-wing groups will undoubtedly heighten their homophobic rhetoric, as is already happening on social media,” he said.

The SASOD Executive explained that the move to hold a referendum will only serve to stress out and burden the mental health of the local LGBT community, instead of strengthening social cohesion and building national unity.

Reactions on Facebook by Caribbean activists have come in:

Vidyaratha Kissoon
"lol i remember when he first said this and i wrote a thing about it seems the sex was okay, but marriage was not.."

Caleb Orozco of UNIBAM
"Who the hell is talking about marriage when basic protections don't exist" he continued "One of many silly politician feeding the masses foolery"

Annie Paul | How To Thwart The Gay Agenda

So blogger Annie Paul did this one, also see my previous entry on sister blog HERE, meanwhile Miss Paul did a relatively good job, frankly the folks at JCHS are just paranoid.

You are the head of a self-appointed coalition to foster a 'healthy society' in Jamaica. You are also a medical doctor. Or you are the head of an assembly of churches, a reverend. No, not one of those going around molesting young girls. No, no, not one of those. You are both dedicated to the policing of gender boundaries in Jamaica. Men are men and women are women, and there shall be nothing betwixt or between.

You are duty-bound to police the borders of Jamaica against interlopers and unwanted immigrants. Why, even Donald Trump is taking a leaf out of your book! Those who ignore or show lack of respect for gender boundaries are not welcome in Jamaica. It is your solemn duty to make this clear to every citizen. You have to be particularly vigilant against the gay agenda, a global conspiracy involving institutions at the highest levels - the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Union whose goal is to destroy the world (and, inter alia, the Jamaican family) by legalising gay marriage.

If, God forbid, gay marriage is legalised in Jamaica, it will be the beginning of the end. For all and sundry will take up with their own gender, setting up same-sex households all over the country, and soon procreation will grind to a halt. There are no examples, as yet, of this happening in countries where gay marriage has been legalised, but so what? Reality is not a shackle. Keep stressing the following point. How can we have a healthy society without children?

As for feminists. They, too, must be kept from invading Jamaica, where we like to do things in old, time-honoured ways. It is a pity that slavery was officially abolished two centuries ago. What is wrong with slavery? Nothing at all. Slaves are essential to healthy families. Women are meant to cook, clean, raise children, and provide sex for heads of households at no pay. Also, the sex part is non-negotiable, women must deliver when the subject is broached. Shop must remain open 24/7. Think open access is a new sumpn?

It's just that slavery must be gender-based. This is why it's so important to distinguish between the sexes. There can be no ambiguity about this. Men and women who break these rules must be enslaved by our cultural rules. Either they conform to these or they leave. It is for the benefit of the nation. Our good name is at stake.

Defining Rape

Also, it is to be noted that rape is a crime that can only be inflicted on women, for Jamaican law defines sexual intercourse under the Sexual Offences Act as "penetration of the vagina of one person by the penis of another person". Rape occurs when there is sexual intercourse without the consent of the woman. That is, for rape to happen, there has to be penetration of a vagina. By a penis. If a man buggers a boy or man, that is not rape. If a man thrusts his penis into your daughter's mouth without her consent, that is not rape either. Nor is penetration of one's orifices, vaginal or not, by the forced intrusion of an object, considered rape.

This actually means that homosexual men who bugger other men or boys get away with a lesser charge of grievous sexual assault, with much milder punishment compared to rape, but so what? "Anal penetration is wrong in 2017 and anal penetration will still be wrong in the year 3000."

We can't let ourselves be fooled by such tactics. Sometimes the truth is inconvenient, but let that not stand in your way. Redefinition of rape is a Trojan horse to bring in gay marriage. The gay agenda must be stopped at all costs. It's the al-Qaida of the God-fearing world, the ISIS of virtuous, law-abiding countries such as Jamaica.

What about all those women who keep turning up murdered, you ask? Like the one in the barrel in St Thomas? Ignore them, man. More than likely, they were asking for it. It's just the work of feminists. That is why we have to oust them, too. There is too much sensationalising of crimes against women, the media gives them too much space. "Men die every day. Boys are molested and sexually assaulted in every community. But what? No one cries out, protests, chastises Government or prays about it. Male lives matter, too."

Hat tip to the brilliant Nigerian satirist, Elnathan John.

- Annie Paul is a writer and critic based at the University of the West Indies and author of the blog, Active Voice (anniepaul.net). Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com or tweet @anniepaul.

US Antigay evangelicals have temper tantrums over Trump’s gay marriage flip flop

In this Jan. 31, 2016, file photo, Pastor Joshua Nink, right, prays for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, as wife, Melania, left, watches after a Sunday service at First Christian Church, in Council Bluffs, Iowa. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File

Donald Trump sat down with “60 Minutes” last weekend for his first televised interview since winning the election, where he discussed a wide range of topics, including gay marriage.
When asked whether he would rollback marriage equality laws, Trump nonchalantly said that it’s no longer an issue he cares to pursue.

Related:

seen as patronizing towards the LGBT community during the campaign

Why we can’t trust that lying liar Donald Trump on marriage (or anything)

“It’s irrelevant because it was already settled,” he said. “It’s law. It was settled in the Supreme Court. I mean it’s done…these cases have gone to the Supreme Court. They’ve been settled. And…I’m fine with that.”

This is a stark contrast to what he said on the campaign trail just one week ago, and his most die-hard evangelical supporters aren’t happy about it.

Christian extremists are not taking it well:

 Follow

brian bartley @calibkb

@realDonaldTrump Gay marriage is a abomination to most Christians! Gay marriage makes a mock of man & woman to bond & procreate

2:42 PM - 14 Nov 2016

 
•  11 Retweet
 
•  likes

@TheFactsOfShade gay marriage should be banned

— GO MELANIA TRUMP! (@CalderYves) November 14, 2016

 Follow

Bird Fishing @HaastsEagleApp

@realDonaldTrump Don't change or you will lose the Christians who don't agree with this backlash of Gay Rights...Man and Women..

2:00 PM - 14 Nov 2016

 
•  Retweets
 
•  11 like

 Follow

Cedric Taylor 🌐 @TheUrbanEntity

@realDonaldTrump YOU ARE GETTING IT WRONG WITH GAY MARRIAGE. NEEDS TO BE OVERTURNED! DON'T SCREW IT UP WITH ABORTION. SAVE OUR BABIES!

1:48 PM - 14 Nov 2016

 
•  Retweets
 
•  likes

 Follow

Jamie Stout @JamieStout20

@realDonaldTrump If you do not appoint judges who protect marriage... one man, one woman and protect bathrooms... then I've wasted my vote

3:13 PM - 14 Nov 2016

 
•  55 Retweets
 
•  22 likes

9 Nov

Deelite @LOVatoLUVAH

@realDonaldTrump PLEASE UNITE THIS COUNTRY!Make it clear to the people you will do that! And pls do not touch gay rights! @KellyannePolls

 Follow

Sharon Wilson @Queenmomof10

@LOVatoLUVAH @realDonaldTrump @KellyannePolls please touch gay rights one man one woman one life thats what the bible says

7:31 PM - 13 Nov 2016

 
•  Retweets
 
•  11 like

The hypocrisy continues much of which laughter is coming from some circles as those locally are also up in arms about the seeming about face by Trump, indeed uncertainty. It is laughable in a sense as they all thought he would go against marriage equality despite his misogyny, race baiting and right wing sentiments, playing on such folks malaise to win the elections. Evangelicals in the name of God were quite prepared to support him despite all the above and more.

Let us see how this play out.

Peace & tolerance

H

Trump considering woman, openly gay man for leadership posts

 some see this as patronsing the LGBT community

his third wife posing nude for GQ magazine

If this is to be believed then the religious crackpots who celebrated that he will change the gay marriage issues and such must be squirming in their corner.

WASHINGTON, United States (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump is considering a woman to run the Republican Party and an openly gay man to represent the US at the United Nations, moves that would inject diversity into a Trump team.

The incoming president is considering Richard Grenell as United States ambassador to the United Nations. If picked and ultimately confirmed by the Senate, he would be the first openly gay person to fill a Cabinet-level foreign policy post. Grenell previously served as US spokesman at the UN under former President George W Bush’s Administration.

At the same time, Trump is weighing whether to select Michigan GOP Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, a niece of Trump critic and 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney. She would be the first woman in decades to run the Republican National Committee.

“I’ll be interested in whatever Mr Trump wants,” McDaniel told The Associated Press yesterday, adding that she was planning to seek the Michigan GOP chairmanship again.

Appointing McDaniel to run the GOP’s political arm could be an effort to help the party heal the anger after a campaign in which Trump demeaned women. The appointment of Grenell could begin to ease concerns by the gay community about Vice-President-elect Mike Pence’s positions on same-sex marriage during his time as Indiana governor.

The personnel moves under consideration were confirmed by people with direct knowledge of Trump’s thinking who were not authorised to publicly disclose private discussions. They stressed that the decisions are not final.

Internal deliberations about staffing come a day after Trump made overtures to warring Republican circles by appointing RNC Chairman Reince Priebus as his White House chief of staff and Breitbart News executive Stephen Bannon as chief strategist and senior councillor.

The two men had made up the president-elect’s chief of staff shortlist, and while Priebus received that job, Bannon is expected to wield significant clout. Trump gave top billing to the former media executive, who led a website that appealed to the so-called “alt-right” — a movement often associated with efforts on the far right to preserve “white identity”, oppose multiculturalism and defend “Western values”.

Priebus yesterday defended the media mogul, saying the two made an effective pair as they steered Trump past Democrat Hillary Clinton and toward the presidency. He sought to distance Bannon from the incendiary headlines on his website, saying they were written by unspecified others.

“Together, we’ve been able to manage a lot of the decision making in regard to the campaign,” Priebus told NBC’s Today. ‘’It’s worked very, very well.”

Trump’s hires were, at first glance, contradictory, though they fit a pattern of the celebrity businessman creating a veritable Rorschach test that allowed his supporters to see what they wanted. Priebus, who lashed the RNC to Trump this summer, despite some intra party objections, is a GOP operative with deep expertise of the Washington establishment that Trump has vowed to shake up. He has close ties to House Speaker Paul Ryan, a fellow Wisconsinite.

Bannon, meanwhile, helped transform the Breitbart News site into the leading mouthpiece of the party’s anti-establishment wing, which helped fuel the businessman’s political rise. Ryan has been one of his most frequent targets.

Neither Priebus nor Bannon brings policy experience to the White House. Chiefs of staff in particular play a significant role in policymaking, serving as a liasons to Cabinet agencies and deciding what information makes it to the president’s desk. They’re often one of the last people in the room with the president as major decisions are made.

In announcing the appointments, Trump said Priebus and Bannon would work as “equal partners” — effectively creating two power centres in the west wing. The arrangement is risky and could leave ambiguity over who makes final decisions.

Trump has long encouraged rivalries, both in business and in his presidential campaign. He cycled through three campaign managers during his White House run, creating a web of competing alliances among staffers.

Priebus is a traditional choice, one meant as an olive branch to the Republicans who control both houses of Congress as Trump looks to pass his legislative agenda.

The Bannon pick, however, is controversial.

Bannon, who became campaign CEO in August, pushed Trump to adopt more populist rhetoric and paint rival Hillary Clinton as part of a global conspiracy made up of the political, financial and media elite and bankers bent on oppressing the country’s working people — a message that carried Trump to the White House but to some, carried anti-Semitic undertones.

An ex-wife of Bannon said he expressed fear of Jews when the two battled over sending their daughters to private school nearly a decade ago, according to court papers reviewed this summer by The Associated Press. In a sworn court declaration following their divorce, Mary Louise Piccard said her ex-husband had objected to sending their twin daughters to an elite Los Angeles academy because he “didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews”.

A spokeswoman for Bannon denied he made those statements.

Rev Peter Espeut | Backlash And 'Gaylash' claims he is not a Trump supporter

So antigay Catholic priest and environmentalist has come out claiming he is not a Trump supporter and attempts to distance himself from some of his counterpart theologians, pastors and priests. I am not fully impressed by this but for what is worth it may be a sign that some sense is finally coming his way in terms of a middle ground on homosexuality and such.

Source:

Sometimes election observers allow their personal preferences to interfere with how they read the signs of the times to predict the outcome of elections. For many, Donald Trump's outrageous racist and misogynistic utterances on the campaign trail disqualify him from holding arguably the most powerful political office on the planet; for others, it is his anti-free trade and anti-environmental positions that make him objectionable. Others just wanted a woman - good or bad - to become president. Yet Trump got enough votes on Tuesday to be on his way to become the 45th President of the United States, and many people just can't understand it.

ASSUMPTION

The fundamental assumption behind scientific attempts to understand human behaviour is that Homo sapiens is a rational species; therefore, there is always rationality behind human behaviour, and the scientific task is to discover it to be able to understand it.

In my column of August 12, 'Trump did not nominate himself' I pointed out: "I feel the frustration of the mainstream US media during this present election campaign. What is supposed to happen is that when the foibles and foolishness of a candidate are exposed to the public, the popularity of the candidate is supposed to fall in the opinion polls ... .

"This has not been happening with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Over the last many months on the campaign trail, Trump has made outrageous and bigoted statements ridiculing women, ethnic minorities, the handicapped, and Muslims, yet his favourability ratings in the polls continued to increase. He has insulted journalists, threatened press freedom, stated an intention to pull out of NATO, and to cancel free trade agreements; he has characterised illegal immigrants travelling over the Mexican border into the USA as 'criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc.', and has made outlandish proposals to build a 'great wall' between the USA and Mexico - which, he claims, he will make Mexico pay for; yet his numbers continued to improve. He has contradicted himself, backtracked on earlier statements, and been caught in lies; in December 2015, Politifact named 'The many campaign misstatements of Donald Trump' as its '2015 Lie of the Year', noting at the time, that 76 per cent of Trump statements rated by the fact-checking website were rated 'Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire', more than any other politician; yet his numbers have increased all the more."

For me, something else was at work here. What was of interest was not Trump and his scandalous behaviour, but how the US electorate was responding to it as reflected by pollsters. In the primaries, Trump beat out 11 other candidates to become the Republican nominee, receiving the most primary votes of any Republican candidate in US history. I wrote: "I think the focus of the analysts is wholly misplaced: it should be on the behaviour of Republican voters and not on the behaviour of Trump himself.

"Clearly, the millions who faithfully support Donald Trump for president - despite his obvious deficiencies and dangerous personality flaws - feel seriously threatened by something. Their unrelenting support of Trump ... seems almost pathological. What could they be so angry about?"

The phenomenon deepened, with more egregious Trump sexism, and many sensible women coming to his defence. I realised something remarkable was about to happen. In my column of October 27, 'Voting for a change' I pointed out that "we in the Third World complain about how we are being disadvantaged by market fundamentalists, mostly in the USA; but over the years blue-collar workers in the USA have been suffering, too, from the Washington Consensus policies practised by their own government".

SENDING A MESSAGE

It was clear to me that, by supporting Trump, the underclass in the USA was trying to send mainstream Democrats and Republicans a message: a backlash against the Washington Consensus. They were hurting so bad, that they were prepared to look beyond the racist, misogynistic, and bigoted statements of Donald Trump, and focus on his anti-immigration, protectionist, and semi-isolationist policies which they perceived to be in their best interests.

I am currently in London, and I stayed up all Tuesday night watching the commentary and interviews on the BBC. A stream of US evangelical pastors and adherents declared in interviews that their support of Donald Trump was rooted in his anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage agenda. They were afraid that a Hilary Clinton presidency would appoint more pro-LGBT Supreme Court justices, who would deepen the implementation of the anti-Christian anti-traditional family LBGT agenda.

The extent to which the Trump electoral victory is due to a backlash against advances in the gay revolution is yet to be fully explored.

Please do not misunderstand me: I am not a Trump supporter. I expect to be unhappy with the Trump presidency; he is likely to be even more anti-environment than the pro-Goat Islands people. But social scientists must seek to understand the social and political phenomena around them.

- Peter Espeut is a sociologist and environmentalist. Email: columns@gleanerjm.com.

ENDS

Homosexuality - A Biological reality

Homophobia - a Lifestyle choice

Your choice is clear as reflected in this piece.

Stick to the environmental issues where your expertise lies.

also see:

Espeut, West says “Homophobia” was invented to abuse Christians as hate speech

My answer to Peter Espeut's rubbish on Homophobia Exposed 

Peter Espeut told to 'Don't Dress Up Homophobia As Science

Sociologist & RC Deacon Peter Espeut on The Right To Discriminate .... and a response

Is this a joke .... Church group denies gay bias 

I Bet Deafening Silence from Religious Anti Gay Voices ...... Preacher served summons during service

The False Dichotomy of the religious right on the LGBT advocacy Godlessness

Continued conflation between homosexuality, atheism, secularism and moral nihilism 

With Gay Abandon by Peter Espeut ..........

'We Have The Numbers' - Anti-Homosexuality Church Leaders Confident Enough Religious Jamaica....