Can Parliament Impose Gay Marriage?

 

Kinisha Forbes and Kirsten Lettsome of the British Virgin Islands (BVI) are two brave women.  Anguilla seems to have none like them.  In 2011 they entered a civil partnership in the United Kingdom.  They were issued a marriage certificate once the UK’s same-sex couples law came into effect.  The couple are now back in the BVI.  They began a court action against the Attorney-General for a declaration that their marriage is valid under BVI law and that prohibiting same-sex marriage in the Territory is unconstitutional.

The BVI Christian Council applied to the Court to be added to the case as a third party so it could file briefs and argue against the claimants.  After initially allowing the Council to intervene, the judge has now struck them from the case, ruling that their application had no realistic prospect of success.  Besides, given the pressure on the court system in the BVI, it is important to make the best use of its resources.

The matter is complicated by two recent developments.  First, the Privy Council on 14 March 2022 in two appeals from Bermuda and the Cayman Islands ruled that the prohibitions on same-sex marriage in those two Territories were compliant with their Constitutions.  So, unless there is some major difference between the Constitutions of the BVI and those other two Territories, the precedents are against Ms Forbes and Ms Lettsome.

The second complication is the recent Private Member’s Bill laid in the House of Lords by Labour Party peer and gay-rights activist, Lord Michael Cashman.  The Bill seeks to make same-sex marriage lawful in all British Overseas Territories where it is currently unlawful.  That would include the BVI and Anguilla.

No one has asked for my opinion, but I am going to give it anyway.  The Privy Council has the power to pass any law it wishes for the Overseas Territories without being obliged to consult them.  However, all right-thinking Anguillians are opposed to the UK imposing domestic laws on the Overseas Territories without our express consent.  If we are really in a partnership for progress with the United Kingdom, such a unilateral step seems a little offensive.

If our Territories are backward in respecting human rights, someone among us needs to engage our people in a campaign of public information.  We must raise the levels of social consciousness and general education among our people.  It is our responsibility to encourage more liberal attitudes of live and let live.  It is not appropriate in the twenty-first century for Britain to dictate to us in this way, no matter how well-meaning the impulse was.

Additionally, it is for our gays and lesbians to agitate for their rights if they want them.  Freedom, democracy, and human rights cannot be taken for granted.  They must continually be fought for.  If our LGBTQ community came out of the closet and demanded equality, they would get it – albeit perhaps only after an almighty struggle.  If they prefer to keep silent, they will continue to be marginalised and discriminated against.

It is true that the UK has used legislation and Orders in Council in the past to amend our domestic law.  For example, within the last twenty-five years they decriminalised anal intercourse and abolished the death penalty in the Overseas Territories including Anguilla.  However, the difference there was that we asked them to do so.  They took this action at the request of our Heads of Government.  It was not unilaterally imposed on us.  The Minutes of the relevant Heads of Government meetings in London reveal that the Heads in effect told the FCO that they did not dare bring up these two reforms in their local parliaments.  The evangelicals and other extremists would raise a political storm.  It would create major problems if local politicians attempted to usher such Bills through the local Assemblies.

So, as a favour to, and at the request of, our Heads of Government, the FCO put the relevant Orders in Council before the Privy Council.  Once signed, anal intercourse became no longer a matter for the Criminal law, and the sentence of hanging was no longer available for a local court to impose.  There was no outcry from any of the Overseas Territories.  At our request, the Privy Council had intervened to assist us in two touchy matters we were afraid to address.

What is the source and origin of our backward attitude to gay marriage?  On what basis do the self-righteous among us fight so vehemently against our gay and lesbian brothers’ and sisters’ desire to have a normal family life?  The answer is that some of us in the British Overseas Territories are stuck in a time warp.  The barbaric moral rules of the Middle Eastern Bronze Age as adumbrated in the Old Testament Books are still taught in many of our third millennium churches and schools as God’s sacred word.  In many of our infant schools, “creationism” is taught instead of evolution of species.  Instead of elementary geology, our primary schools teach that God created the earth on 23 October, 4004 BCE.  At odd times during the day, our ears are assaulted on the airwaves by religious extremists preaching that Sodom and Gomorrah are about to rain down on us.

An apt response to these fanatics of the airwaves comes to mind.  It is an old one, but a good one.  It is worthy of repetition.  A reminder may even help to bring home that it is nonsense they are preaching:

Dear Evangelical Association,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law.  I have learned a great deal from you, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can.  When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination.  End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.

When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Lev 1:9).  The problem is my neighbours.  They claim the odour is not pleasing to them.  Should I smite them?

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7.  In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev 15:19-24).  The problem is, how do I tell?  I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

Lev 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations.  A friend of mine claims that this applies to Kittitians but not St Martiners.  Can you clarify?  Why can’t I own a St Martiner?

I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath.  Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death.  Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

A friend of mine feels that even though eating lobster is an abomination (Lev 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality.  I don’t agree.  Can you settle this?

Lev 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight.  I have to admit that I wear reading glasses.  Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev 19:27.  How should they die?

I know from Lev 11:8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

My uncle has a farm.  He violates Lev 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend).  He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot.  Is it really necessary that we go to the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev 24:16).  Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Our problem in Anguilla is that we jumped from the childish credulity of worshiping Bronze Age barbaric gods of circa 1350 BCE, revitalised by the Gospels and the Koran, into the electronic and digital age without having stopped off at the Enlightenment Period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The enlightened among us must confront religious extremists whenever they stick their faces above the parapet.  We must oppose their twisted rantings for the sake of the mental health of our children and grandchildren, if for nothing else. 

The barbaric knifing of Salman Rushdie in New York at the command of the late Afghan Ayatollah is not peculiarly Muslim behaviour.  Christians among us in earlier centuries behaved in the same murderous way.  During the Reformation period in Europe (1500 to 1700 approximately), Catholics murdered millions of Protestants while Protestants murdered millions of Catholics in retaliation.  In the same way, for centuries the Sunni majority militants murdered Shia minority Muslims.

Most of us who were brought up Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, or Buddhist, have culturally evolved away from such madness.  Only Catholics, Baptists, Pentecostalists, and Suni Muslims are left today to wallow in ancient, murderous, religion-inspired hatreds.

Homophobia Runs Rampant in Anguilla

Homosexual men and women are those that love another person of their own gender.  Homosexuality is the natural inclination to be sexually aroused by a member of the same gender.  It is not an act as such, nor is it a state of morality.  It is a state of being, a state of nature.  It is no more unnatural than being left-handed rather than right-handed.  It is so natural that similar numbers of butterflies, dogs and cows, share it with humans.

Homophobia is an irrational hatred felt towards homosexual men and women.  It is an exaggerated, irrational or extreme fear of gay men or lesbian women.  It is a mental state most commonly found in backward, rural areas, and not tolerated among urban and more thoughtful persons.  It is best viewed as a form of mental illness, appearing strongest among persons who secretly doubt their own sexuality.

In the US, the Kinsey Report by Indiana University zoologist Alfred Kinsey in his Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male, written in 1948, and his Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female, written in 1953, estimated that 10% of the US population was homosexual.  Those percentages of 10% for each gender are a bit high.  Modern research indicates that approximately 4% of the US population identifies itself as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.  In the UK, the Office for National Statistics in its Integrated Household Survey has estimated that a total of 1.5% of the UK population is gay or lesbian.  Whatever the figure, we will agree that homosexuals are a minority of the population.  Anguillans are no different from the rest of the world.  Everywhere that 100 Anguillians are gathered, somewhere between 1.5% and 4% of them are guaranteed to be gay or lesbian.

God made us all, both homosexual and heterosexual.  Our sexuality is not a personal choice:  it is part of our very nature.  Why then do some of us in Anguilla, who call ourselves Christian, get so worked up at the thought that a few among us naturally love another person of the same gender?

Homophobia leads its sufferers to fear and sometimes hate these groups, and subsequently avoid most people they envision as homosexual.  There is a variety of professional treatment options available for persons suffering from homophobia.  These include behavioural therapy, psychotherapy, exposure therapy, relaxation techniques, and meditation.

Fundamentalist, evangelical Christian cultists have long preached against versions of human sexuality that diverge from mainstream sexuality.  They traditionally interpret passages in the Old Testament Book of Leviticus that prohibit “lying with mankind as with womankind,” and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, as condemning and prohibiting homosexual acts.  There are also several Pauline passages in the New Testament, in particular, Romans 1:26-27.

Not that any of the so-called Christians who quote Leviticus bother to read the entire text.  If they did, they might notice that it also condemns eating shrimp, crop co-mingling, eating rabbit, wearing linen and wool at the same time, and eating raw meat.  It is to be hoped that they all sew their own clothes, plant only one food-crop in the garden, eschew lobster and crayfish, refuse to eat steak tartar, and commit themselves to vegetarianism.

No sensible person would normally quote with approval the misogynist, Saint Paul, on the question of the relationship between the sexes.  But, one of the few uncritically positive things he ever wrote on the topic of love is to be found at 1 Corinthians 13, as represented in the New Living Translation.  I quote him as follows:

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.

If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

Love is patient and kind.  Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.  It does not demand its own way.  It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.  It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless.  But love will last forever!

Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!   But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child.  But when I grew up, I put away childish things.

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.  All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

Three things will last forever — faith, hope, and love — and the greatest of these is love.

I commend Paul’s words to the Christians among us.  These are among the truest words he ever wrote, and imbued with the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus had very little to say in the Gospels on the questions of human sexuality and morality.  One passage, with which we are all familiar, deals with the case of the alleged adulterer brought to him by the Scribes and the Pharisees, the pastors, preachers, and would-be lawyers of the time.  According to the Gospel of John, the Pharisees, in an attempt to discredit Jesus, brought before him at the Mount of Olives, where he was teaching his doctrine of love and forgiveness, a woman caught in adultery.

They made her stand before him, and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.  In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such a woman.  So, what do you say?”

They did this to test him, in order to have a basis for accusing him.  But, Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.

When they continued to question him, he straightened up and said to them, “Whoever is without sin among you, let him be the first to cast a stone at her.”  And, again, he bent down and wrote on the ground.

When they heard this, they began to go away one by one, beginning with the older ones, until only Jesus was left, with the woman standing there.

Then, Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are your accusers?  Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, Lord,” she answered.

“Neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared.  “Now, go and sin no more.”

If even Jesus refused to condemn a person who was generally considered in his time to have engaged in an immoral act, which of us today is qualified to do so?

The demands of the Old Testament are varied and confusing.  The result is that even the Devil can cite Scripture for his own purpose.

Given that a sexual preference for another person of your own gender, rather than for one of the opposite gender, is a God-given characteristic, who of us is authorised to declare it a sin?

By what authority does either the Church or the State enter into the bedroom of two consenting adults and declare what they do to each other either wrong or illegal, so long as no third party is harmed?

Given that the Constitution of Anguilla constrains us not to discriminate against the minorities among us, is it not simply wrong for these so-called champions of the majority to take up a cudgel against the minority among us?

And, on the other hand, given the Scribes and Pharisees among us who are secret wife-beaters and child abusers, and who attempt to stir up hatred against homosexuals, should we not proclaim them as the hypocrites they are?  Let them go and take the mote out of their own eye.

Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell in his Divine Comedy is the hottest level in which the souls of the most evil are consigned to burn for all eternity.  This spot is reserved for those hypocritical cultists who, calling themselves Christians, repudiate both the teachings of Christ and of his Apostles.

My final curse is this:  may those so-called Ministers of Religion who stir up hatred against the minority among us, because of their God-given, personal sexual preferences, burn in eternal hellfire for all eternity!

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