Demurrer, Replication and Dejoinder
Barbados
Advocate, February 7, 2005
By Jeff Cumberbatch
I find engrossing the ongoing discussions on the call-in
programmes, in the newspapers and in the various so-called town-halls, whether
on the potential impact of the CSME, on Barbados’ change to formal
republicanism or on the persistently misnamed “decriminalisation of
homosexuality” and prostitution. This is democracy in action. For all its
vaunted educational achievement, Barbados has never appeared to be a hotbed of
intellectualisation on issues affecting the public weal. Indeed, there seems
rather to have been a clear reluctance to approach such matters other than on
the basis of humour so as to offend as little as possible. However, the
relative anonymity of talk-show radio and, doubtless, the fact that all three
of the aforementioned initiatives challenge the orthodoxy, have emboldened
faint hearts to add their two-cents-worth.
None of the above is to suggest that all of the reasoning
employed in support of the various positions is easy to follow. Perhaps,
sometimes, there isn’t any, but I am not so uncharitable as to even take
this as a rebuttable presumption. In this space for the coming weeks, I shall
attempt to treat some of the arguments advanced on these matters.
By their very nature, some of these are easier to deal
with than others. For example, local fundamentalist Christians must be aghast
at the absence of uncritical acceptance to their views which, in former times,
would have been taken, if you will pardon the pun, as gospel. Still, the
witnessed fallibility of those who claimed to speak for God, the sometimes
manic excesses of theocracies and the overuse of the volume of the sacred law
to justify behaviours which we now consider repugnant to justice—slavery,
apartheid, gender discrimination, inter alia—have served to create a more
cynical public, at least to the point of querying whether a mere reliance on
an interpretation from a Biblical text suffices to insulate a proposition from
debate.
Moreover, some assertions are so novel that their
validity is immediately doubted. The Prime Minister claims that the need for a
referendum to determine whether Barbados should become a republic died with
the last Parliament and thus there is no present requirement for this device
to determine the question. The general thrust of this argument is not unknown
to constitutional practice—the Employment Rights Bill died a natural death
with the dissolution of the last Parliament. The difficulty with the PM’s
argument however, is that the promise of a referendum was not a Parliamentary
act (to be distinguished from an Act of Parliament), so that the end of that
Parliament could not guarantee its demise. What has in fact occurred is that a
political promise has now been reneged on, though not without some proferred
justification. This is to the effect that given the overwhelming support of
the present administration by an electorate with full knowledge of its
intentions in this context, a vote for the party was a vote for republicanism.
The force of this defence is a matter for public consideration, but I am more
hopeful than most that any such referendum would be affirmative of change.
To similar effect is the published (Barbados Advocate,
January 30, 2005) statement attributed to the leader of the Opposition last
week “I have no difficulty with [male] homosexuals, but I cannot see myself
being part of a Parliament that supports decriminalising buggery”. I am not
entirely clear as to what this means. That homosexuality is OK so long as its
practitioners are not legally permitted to express that love in a way that
disgusts me? This is nothing but discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation with a jigger of political correctness. Only real men and asexual
homosexuals welcome here!
In the same edition, the writer with whom I share this
page viewed any decriminalisation of buggery as “very undesirable and indeed
detrimental”. It is not made clear whether these epithets refer to the
would-be legislation itself or to the consequences thereof. But it is at least
doubtful whether there has ever been any local prosecution for consensual
buggery (also unlawful) in our history. Thus, any enactment would simply
reflect the status quo.
In Barbados however, form is sometimes more critical than
substance. So let’s assume that the would-be legislation did have its
imagined effect of permitting all those who were eagerly awaiting it to bugger
away in private with other consenting adult partners to their hearts’
content; how does this enure to the disbenefit of the nation? And whence a
universal entitlement to pry into bedrooms so as to ensure that all citizens
are participating only in sex acts considered proper by a tyrannical majority,
in appropriate positions and for the ordained length of time?
A possible answer came from one letter writer who opined
that homosexuality was evil and sinful because its universal practice could
result in the destruction of the species. I suppose that an identical claim
could be made in respect of poor dietary habits, celibacy, onanism, coitus
interruptus and sterility, but I am probably out of my depth. Equally an
epiphany was that writer’s proposition that the criminal law of Barbados is
based on the Ten Commandments. I do not research criminal law and I may be on
quicksand here, but when last I checked, it was perfectly legal to have any
number of Gods one desired and to take the name of the Lord in vain; and it
was not an offence to commit adultery, to forget to keep the Sabbath or to
covet your neighbour’s wife, ox or ass. And for all of its alleged
heinousness, there is no mention whatsoever of homosexuality anywhere in the
decalogue.
(To be continued)
(Jeff Cumberbatch lectures in law at the Cave Hill Campus
of UWI).
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