On Thursday we reported Roman Catholic Bishop Francis Alleyne as saying that it was time for the anti-sodomy laws in Guyana to be made null and void, although he maintained that the act of homosexuality was still morally wrong. He expressed these views when he addressed the Intimate Conviction 2 virtual conference held over three days at the end of November.
There is no doubt that this pronouncement will be welcomed by the LGBTQ community and many others as well, since most of the arguments traditionally put forward for keeping these laws on the statute books are that one or another of the faiths considers homosexuality as morally wrong. And the Roman Catholic Church is one of the largest Christian denominations whose leaders have a powerful voice which extends beyond the boundaries of the congregation for whom they speak.
Since he still regards sexual activity outside the “male/female covenantal relationship for the purpose of procreation [as] disordered and morally wrong”, then the question inevitably arises as to why the Bishop nevertheless considers that homosexual activity between consenting adults should be decriminalised.
First of all he noted that the laws are not often invoked in this country, and that when they are it is with a view to victimising members of the LGBTQ community. Referencing a paper produced by the Caribbean Research Services Inc, which the Bishop described as helpful in so far as it dealt with specifics, he said it reported strong views against homosexuals, but that there was also a high percentage of people who expressed tolerance and acceptance. In addition, when people were polled about the anti-sodomy laws, many did not know about them, and when told thought them illogical.
Bishop Alleyne inferred from the paper, he said, that even among those who condemned homosexuals, their responses took on a more compassionate tone and one of greater acceptance when asked their response in circumstances where a person was a family member, friend or work colleague. “Here is an invitation to pastoral outreach,” he told the conference; “we belong to each other. Every person is endowed with dignity and worth deserving our utmost respect.”
Since the Bishop does not function within a democratic organisation in addition to which it is impervious to pollsters, then one assumes that this quote encapsulates how he reconciles legal decriminalisation with a counter moral position. At the pastoral level, he said, it would go a long way if faith bodies created spaces where people could celebrate their common humanity, going on to say at one point, that at the heart of Christianity is the teaching that lives and relationships can be nurtured through love.
Conscious, no doubt, that those who have argued for keeping the anti-sodomy laws in place have often had recourse to passages from the Scriptures, he was quoted as saying: “There are numerous texts, particularly in the gospels that we can see that in various ways it points to the Christian assuming responsibility for his or her life and the lives of others, especially the minorities and vulnerable persons or groups and to do so with compassion and in service, with generosity and with a sense of sacredness and respect.”
These are the texts which should be quoted, he further said, if anyone is seeking support from the Scriptures. They foster communion, and help people better negotiate the tensions which may arise when “we encounter the unfamiliar.” They are the ones, he continued, which would quell our fears.
It might be noted that in October Pope Francis went even further, expressing support for same-sex civil unions. This was not an official statement, but came in the course of an interview in a documentary called ‘Francisco’ about his period of papacy. It premiered at the Rome film festival in October.
The Pope was quoted by the London Guardian as saying: “Homosexual people have a right to be in a family. They are children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out or be made miserable over it. What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered. I stood up for that.”
While the Guardian stated that the pontiff had never previously publicly backed civil unions for same-sex couples, he had endorsed such legal arrangements when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Furthermore, the paper reported him as telling a group representing the parents of LGBT children that, “God loves your children as they are” and “the pope loves your children as they are, because they are children of God”.
It went on to recount what Juan Carlos Cruz, a survivor of sexual abuse who met the Pope, had to say in the documentary: “He [Pope Francis] told me: ‘Juan Carlos, that you are gay does not matter. God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care. The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are.’”
None of this is likely to warm the cockles of ultra-conservative Catholic hearts, but what can be said is that Bishop Alleyne is not out on a limb in terms of the pontiff’s thinking.
While Roman Catholic prelates have to negotiate what Bishop Alleyne at one point called the “tension between the established doctrine teaching” on the one hand, “and the pastoral concerns” which involve real people on the other, the issue for those who have charge of the state is of a different order.
A statement issued by the Bishops of the Antilles in 2015, to which Bishop Alleyne made reference in his address, at one point said that “legality does not make a thing moral.” In a general sense, of course, laws have to be underpinned by morality, but in a plural state such as ours, there is no absolute agreement among religious groups in particular about what constitutes morality in every instance. Of course there is total unanimity on matters such as murder, robbery, violence, rape, etc, etc, and were that not so there could be no society, but on some other lesser but still vexatious ‘moral’ issues there may be a divergence of opinion.
While our politics may be a source of total exasperation, we have not done too badly in social and cultural areas, all things considered, accommodating different views with a modicum of give and take. On the religious front, for example, there is no moral unity on abortion, divorce, heterosexual relations or even marriage as it relates to Muslims, but we have still managed to operate some kind of modus vivendi over the years. This has been made possible by the fact that the framework of the state is a secular one, and all religions have to be sheltered within it, with the consequence that some have had to give way in terms of their beliefs on a given front. What makes the system work in a larger sense is a measure of tolerance.
Since no one religion takes precedence in a secular state, a recognition of people’s fundamental human rights becomes our guide. And those fundamental human rights and freedoms require that we decriminalise homosexual relations between consenting adults. While we have made progress in many areas relating to rights, proscribing discrimination of one kind or another in the Constitution, there are still outstanding issues, including this one.
Bishop Alleyne naturally would not position himself to argue a secular case; what he has done is speak to Roman Catholics within the parameters of their shared religious beliefs, arguing to all intents and purposes that the anti-sodomy laws cannot be justified on the grounds of religion, although the Church still does not condone homosexuality per se. This is progress in our situation, although it remains to be seen whether other denominations will take their cue from him.
