– the referendum on LGBT rights is intended to deny them
Two males or two females having consensual sex in the privacy of their own home can be sentenced to life-imprisonment under the laws of Guyana. Although this law is old, archaic and has not been enforced in the last several decades, it still stigmatises, discriminates and criminalises the LGBT community. Guyana by law denies some people their fundamental human rights. Different governments have failed to correct this blatant violation of Guyana’s obligation of freedom and equality for all citizens. I regret that I was not more forceful during my tenure in Parliament to ensure we remedy this shameful deficit in extending equality to ALL CITIZENS.
Under review by the United Nations (UN) Commission on Human Rights, Guyana’s Parliament is obligated to review our laws and remove laws such as the sodomy laws that criminalise the LGBT community, denying some citizens their fundamental human rights. The 10th Parliament established a Special Select Committee to ensure the review and recommend a pathway to bring our laws into conformity with international human rights standards. The 11th Parliament has basically repudiated those efforts by refusing to pursue the review of the sodomy laws.
Compounding the problem, APNU/AFC has asserted that decriminalisation of LGBT by repealing sodomy laws can only be determined by a referendum. The President last year spoke about a referendum to determine whether the sodomy laws should be repealed. This year, both the Attorney General and the Foreign Affairs Minister have also spoken of a referendum. The referendum proposal for repealing laws that criminalise the lifestyles of LGBT citizens in Guyana is a deliberate effort to torpedo the obligation of Parliament to bring our laws in conformity with the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
The truth is the proposal of a referendum to decide whether the laws that criminalise LGBT should be repealed is another deception, another hoax by APNU/AFC. By choosing the path of a referendum, APNU/AFC has chosen to continue the denial of fundamental human rights to the LGBT community. Firstly, this will take time. Secondly, it will generate disharmony and acrimony in a society that is already plagued by polarisation. The proposed referendum will promote greater stigma and discrimination and even incite violence against citizens. Thirdly, APNU/AFC’s referendum proposal is designed to bury the movement to make our laws more humane and more consistent with human rights standards.
This past week, we celebrated the 51st anniversary of Guyana’s Independence. But more and more, by various actions, APNU/AFC is compromising our sovereignty. The criminalisation of LGBT through sodomy laws is a handover from our colonial past. It is law in Guyana through a savings-law clause in our Constitution that deemed certain laws which we inherited from the British an automatic law in our country. Yet the UK itself repealed the law in 1968. The referendum proposal is a stumbling block to the repealing of the law, ensuring that the colonial heritage of Guyana remains firmly in place.
The view of the Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, is a more practical one. He and his party recognised that the fundamental human rights of LGBT Guyanese are being denied by laws that presently make LGBT citizens criminals, even if they are rarely prosecuted. He conceded that the laws criminalising LGBT must be repealed. But he also recognises that there are other human rights issues pertaining to the lifestyles of LGBT citizens, such as same-sex marriage. In his view that is a matter that requires more dialogue and will have to be addressed at a later time, since Guyana may not be ready to take this leap that many countries have already taken. He is proposing an incremental approach.
Political hesitancy to repeal the sodomy laws is based on an argument that the majority of Guyanese support these punitive laws and, therefore, APNU/AFC posits they have no mandate to change them. In 2001, the PPP made the same argument when President Jagdeo refused to assent a bill which prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. Church leaders, supported by the then PNC-Opposition successfully lobbied President Jagdeo who asked for more dialogue. Church leaders opposed both the sexual orientation anti-discrimination provision in the Constitution then and still oppose the repealing of the sodomy laws because they argue these are against the laws of God and that such provisions open the door for same-sex marriage.
But the Constitution which guarantees the freedom of religion also guarantees equal rights for all citizens. We have been wrong in denying the fundamental rights of LGBT citizens before, hiding behind God. APNU/AFC is now compounding the wrong by hiding behind God and a referendum. It is an ugly and an ungodly excuse to continue the denial of fundamental human rights to ALL CITIZENS.
