Dear Editor,
Clearly the PPP had been waiting to get back in government to decriminalise homosexuality. A change of this sort, so important an assault on our values, should have been made a campaign issue. The elections should have served as a plebiscite on the social engineering and other changes they plan to effect. They intend, again clearly, to decree that their “consultations” show all to be favourable, and then perhaps introduce a bill.
That they have been long acting as if homosexuality is alright, and the fact that Dr Luncheon is on the record as saying they find the act tolerable, is an indication of their disposition in the matter.
In your paper of Jan 6, we are told that the consultations are soon to begin. It is hard to understand what is meant by “consultations.” Given past practice, it should mean going into communities and selling them the idea. We do not know that a survey would be done. And even if that were to be the case, the pollster has to be so chosen and the methodology, including the form in which the questions are put, must be so designed as to ensure that Guyanese know what they are being asked to legitimise.
On moral issues the government gets its way. The case of abortion and casino gambling comes to mind. The hue and cry of protest is ignored. The provision is put in place. The hue and cry dies down.
If the reform of the law goes to parliament and a simply majority is required, we can surmise that the AFC will vote with the PPP on this one. A letter, pre-elections, by Sasenarine Singh invited all Guyanese, irrespective of race, class, and, he added, sexual orientation, to hop on the AFC barge and row with the rest. The invitation was not rescinded by the party. And, we are sure, still stands.
How will the APNU vote? I think some time ago there had been a decision to make the issue a “conscience vote” so that members of the House could vote as they saw fit and would not have been obliged to vote with the group. The question was, if I remember correctly, then put into the cold storage of a parliamentary committee of some sort. We may perhaps say that the multilateral agencies or foreign aid people and so on, insist that some changes to the laws be made. It is a terrible day when poverty reduces you to accepting homosexuality. There are a lot of changes that appear more urgent than this.
The PPP has brought some interesting elements to our collective history: inefficient communists, phantom killer allegations, accusations of corruption against it and its friends, a thin stratum of the nouveau riche, secrecy about deals both good and bad, and now, the final indignity, immunity for homosexuality which is hastily being prepared. Was this all they could offer in the name of Cheddi Jagan; is this all for which they will be remembered?
Engels, the great communist theoretician, in two of his works describes homosexuality as “loathsome… morally degenerate…” But Lenin and Trotsky apparently repealed anti-homosexual legislation after 1917. Stalin reversed that decision. Castro was of the view, like most communists, that sodomy should be discouraged, even repressed. But ex-communists have varied on the issue. I read that Russia decriminalised homosexuality since 1993. It is a post-communist posture.
Our PPP communists seem, they have to admit, to have slipped into the mentality of “post-communism” and are now right up there, in the front line, with the materialistic and decadent petty bourgeois they so mercilessly excoriated in their former lives. Would they be able to lead the faithful down the road to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender) innovation? Religious faiths in this country vary as to their attitude towards the question. But the Abrahamic religions like Christianity and Islam are unwavering in their opposition. Let us see how it all plays out.
Yours faithfully,
Abu Bakr
