On January 4, 2001, the National Assembly passed an amendment to the Constitution of Guyana prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, among other things, by a vote of 55 to 0. Never mind the unanimity of the vote, then President Jagdeo declined to sign it into law after elements in the religious community, among whom Bishop Juan Edghill was prominent, campaigned vociferously against it. The nation was left to conclude, therefore, that the Bishop and others were prepared in a democratic polity where the acknowledged principle is that everyone was equal before the law and should have equal rights, to countenance inequality in relation to a specific section of the population.
Even if the constitutional amendment had been signed into law, legal opinion at the time was divided about whether or not it would necessarily affect the substantive laws on the statute books dealing with homosexuality in particular, although the more experienced members of the bar such as former Justice Keith Massiah, seemed to think it certain that these could be successfully challenged on the grounds of their unconstitutionality. Be that as it may, more than thirteen years later there is still no constitutional provision protecting those of a different sexual orientation from discrimination, and the punitive laws directed at them are still securely embedded in our criminal legislation.
The relevant provisions are found first in the Criminal Law Offences Act, Cap 8:01, Sections 351-353, the first of which deals with gross indecency either in public or private by males specifically, and makes an offender liable to two years’ imprisonment. Sections 252 and 253 cover “attempts to commit buggery” and “buggery” respectively, the first of which attracts a penalty of ten years for a male found guilty of “assaulting” another male, and the second a liability to imprisonment for life.
Where cross-dressing is concerned, the operative law which has been invoked in the courts even in recent times is the Summary Jurisdiction (Offences) Act, Cap 8:02, Section 153 (1) (xlvii). This makes it an offence for a man “in any public way or public place, for any improper purpose…[to appear] in female attire, or… a woman…for any improper purpose [to appear] in male attire.” One can only remark as an aside, that many women nowadays (whether for “improper” purposes or otherwise – and how would the authorities be able to tell?) dress routinely in what in a different era would be regarded as male attire.
The latest impetus for eradicating these absurd and offensive laws from our statute books came as a response to some rather foolish comments by Rev Ronald McGarrell, the Vice-Chairman of the Inter-Religious Organisation, who two weeks ago said that homosexuals should be quarantined on an island by themselves. He later retreated from this somewhat, saying he intended it as a joke, although that in no way affected his views on the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) lifestyle.
It was subsequent to this that the garrulous Bishop Edghill entered the fray. As a guest on a radio programme he endorsed what Pastor McGarrell had to say, and while he prefaced his statements with the caveat he was speaking in his capacity as a religious leader and not on behalf of the government, that does not exonerate him. As a minister of government he should not have had anything to say on the subject at all; he was not in his own church but on the public airwaves, and what he had to say may very well have compromised the government which has not, as yet, adopted an official position on the matter.
He did address the question of equality, however, and said that the Christian perspective was that all men should be treated equally, and that gays and lesbians should have access to housing, health care, education, etc. “Their rights should not be taken away from them or they shouldn’t be discriminated against because of their lifestyle,” he said on the programme. Well this is all very contradictory. If Bishop Edghill believes that LGBT people have equal rights, why did he pressurise Mr Jagdeo in 2001 not to sign a constitutional provision prohibiting discrimination against them? Has he now changed his mind? And is he now of the view that laws which can, for example, hand down punishments of life imprisonment for what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms should be repealed? If he does not, then his public position on no discrimination is meaningless, reflecting gross insincerity at best.
The whole debate on this issue is being driven by religious viewpoints. Guyana, however, is a secular country; it has to be because this is a multi-faith nation, and where sexual mores are concerned there is no absolute accord between the faiths – or even between the different denominations of the same religion. If a specific religious stance is to be incorporated into the laws (or in this case, perhaps, left in the laws) then it has to be defensible on the grounds of reflecting overarching secular, ethical principles to which the society is committed. In this case, those overarching principles relate to universal human rights to which Guyana, along with many other nations, has declared adherence. The problem is our current laws which affect those who are LGBT are simply not compatible with human rights.
The sanitizing of the Criminal Law Offences Act and the Summary Jurisdiction (Offences) Act in conformity with human rights requirements, would not affect the private beliefs of any of the religious communities; their primary concern is with sin. The state does not deal with sin, however; that is simply not its business. This does not mean to say that there are not many crimes on the statute books that the churches would not also regard as sins, but it is not the case that a sin necessarily translates into a crime or illegality.
It might be noted, for example, that the state decrees a man may marry only one wife, although there is at least one faith here whose Holy Book allows up to four. Religious beliefs notwithstanding, however, the state regards bigamy or polygamy as a criminal offence – a kind of reverse situation where what the secular authorities see as a crime is permissible in the eyes of the religion. Views on divorce, for example, vary between faiths and denominations, but a divorce obtained through the courts is the only kind recognized by the state. There may be a denomination which in certain circumstances would not recognize a decree nisi obtained in the usual way, but that is an issue for the individual and their church, not for the state. The point is, as mentioned above, that in the area of mores the beliefs of specific religions often deviate from the laws of the state.
Of course there have been those who have promoted the spurious argument that if LGBT persons are afforded their human rights, it will open the door to legalising bestiality and paedophilia, etc. This is, of course, a nonsensical argument; predators of whatever kind have no ‘human right’ to abuse victims, least of all children, and on that, those of all religious persuasions, those of a secular disposition and the LGBT community itself concur.
At this point in Guyana’s history, the time has surely come for all parties in parliament to agree that the retrogressive sections in the two acts mentioned above are overdue for excision. If we genuinely believe in human rights, then we should make that manifest and ensure that no minority in this country is denied its rights because of a confusion of sin with the law.
