The Opposition Free National Movement (FNM) has vowed to do everything in its power to block exploratory oil drilling in The Bahamas ...before comprehensive regulations are put in place ...and unless there is full disclosure of any relationship between the oil industry and senior Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) members

Opposition Calls For Full Disclosure On Plp Links To Oil

Tribune 242

 
THE Opposition has vowed to do everything in its power to block exploratory oil drilling in the Bahamas before comprehensive regulations are put in place and unless there is full disclosure of any relationship between the oil industry and senior PLPs.


And, with the government’s “rush to drill” – despite its own pre-election promises – FNM chairman Darron Cash claimed there were also worries the government was simply delivering a ‘favour to a financial backer’.

He said in a press release: “The FNM will use every means at its disposal to ensure that the first drill does not penetrate the sea bed until the appropriate legislative and regulatory frameworks are in place and until the Christie administration officials make full disclosure to the people.”

He said Prime Minister Perry Christie and Deputy Prime Minister Philip Davis both delivered services to the Bahamas Petroleum Company before they came to office, while a PLP candidate was the company’s local manager.

“Full disclosure must begin with Senator Jerome Gomez, former country manager for BPC, Deputy Prime Minister Philip ‘Brave’ Davis and Prime Minister Perry Christie, attorney and consultant, respectively,” Mr Cash said.

“Before these senior public officials vote on any issue regarding oil drilling, they must disclose to the Bahamian people everything related to their dealings with any oil or related company that requires approvals from the government to do business in the Bahamas.”

He said these men must disclose:

• terms and conditions of any contracts they had with oil companies

• how much they, their firms and other related parties were paid

• the duration of their contractual relationships

Prime Minister Perry Christie “seems incapable of designing and implementing public policy in a well thought-out and co-ordinated manner,” said Cash.

“The government has announced its intention to allow exploratory oil drilling ahead of putting in place the legislative and regulatory framework necessary to ensure transparency, safety and appropriate returns to the Bahamian people,” he added.

“The Minister of the Environment has given assurances that these are coming. But we must ask, why the rush?”

The move is reminiscent of the government’s “failed attempt to get approval from the Bahamian people” for web shop gaming.

Mr Cash said: “The government was rejected in that effort because of its failure to put in place the necessary legislative and regulatory framework to ensure accountability and transparency. History appears to be repeating itself. With oil drilling the stakes of incompetence in the Christie government are higher.

“While shortcomings in the web shop business may lead to reduced government tax revenues, lack of oversight and proper enforcement in the oil drilling business would be far more catastrophic, possibly leading to significant destruction of our fishing and tourism industries.”

Mr Cash added: “Prime Minister Christie would be aware from the General Election campaign that this is an issue of tremendous concern to the Bahamian people. In view of that, the FNM would have expected a well-considered and well-structured approach from the very beginning. As of now, the government’s haphazard approach has been enormously disappointing.”

Given the national and international attention that the government knew this matter would receive, he said, the Minister of the Environment should not have announced the government’s policy reversal until the proposed legislative changes and the regulatory framework could be disclosed at the same time.

“It is not constructive to the process that the debate has begun in earnest but there is an information vacuum,” Mr Cash said.

In addition to the government’s failure to present details of the legislative and regulatory framework, he said, there was no evidence that the structure to manage this public discussion had been set up within the Ministry of the Environment, he claimed.

There is no information packet available, no statement of government principles, no answers to frequently asked or anticipated questions, no secretariat and no readily available environmental impact studies, the FNM chairman said.

“For a debate of critical national importance that requires a wealth of information, the process is getting started in a completely backwards fashion. This could have been avoided.

“This begs the question – Why the rush? Again!

“In the interest of complete transparency, the Bahamian people deserve to know whether this action by the government is another act of payback to a financial backer of the PLP?

“While we are at the start of this process, the FNM wants the Christie administration to understand that the official opposition will not be a meaningful partner in this important national debate unless and until the members of the Christie administration with past and present ties to oil interests make complete and accurate disclosures of their past financial and other dealings with the principals of BPC and any related party or entity. This disclosure is non-negotiable.”

The FNM urged the Prime Minister to be “very proactive” in managing any public discussion on the issue of oil drilling.

“He would be well advised to outline a clear plan of action and an information/education campaign so that all stakeholders can be informed and then plan appropriately to have their voices heard on this important issue.

“The Prime Minister, as head of the government owes the Bahamian people this elevated level of transparency.”

Tribune 242

Caribbean Blog International

Prime Minister Perry Christie says that his government’s commitment to an oil referendum might have been miscommunicated

Christie defends oil exploration plan

PM explains decision on ‘research drilling’

BY TANEKA THOMPSON
Guardian Senior Reporter
taneka@nasguard.com

Prime Minister Perry Christie yesterday denied that his administration has flip-flopped on the oil drilling referendum.

He said it was never the intent to interfere with the relevant research needed to determine if The Bahamas has commercially viable oil reserves.

Christie said his government’s commitment to an oil referendum might have been miscommunicated.

“I think at all material times the question probably was not put properly and effectively, but the process was that we were not going to interfere with research and there was a distinction between industrial drilling and research,” he told The Nassau Guardian during the House of Assembly’s recess.

He added that if oil is found but the referendum is not successful at least the country would be informed about its resources.

“People will ask the question, ‘Why should I vote and I don’t even know if there is oil?’”

He also said if significant oil is found in this territory it would be a blessing, but whether that oil would be harnessed would depend on a public vote.

He said it has not yet been determined how revenue from oil drilling would be split between the government and the Bahamas Petroleum Company (BPC).

“If God has given The Bahamas oil in the quantities some people say exist, it would be an incredible bounty for our country,” Christie said.

“But we took a position that if there is going to be the exploitation of oil in The Bahamas, it has to be done with the consent of the Bahamian people.”

Yesterday, Free National Movement (FNM) Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis suggested the government’s stance on the oil drilling referendum has shifted.

Christie has repeatedly pledged to hold a referendum before any drilling is allowed.

However, on Sunday, Minister of Housing and Environment Kenred Dorsett said the government would allow the drilling of an exploratory well before a referendum, to determine if the country has oil in commercial quantities.

Cuba is currently drilling for oil in waters south of Guinchos Cay in The Bahamas.

Christie referenced Dorsett’s recent trip to Cuba to discuss this and said this underscored the need for The Bahamas to create a proper regime for any possible oil drilling.

Some have speculated that if Cuba finds oil near The Bahamas’ borders, this country may also have significant oil reserves.

“I am told that the Cuban wells might be an indication, but because our structures are different to theirs, they believe the structures in The Bahamas are structures that contain oil, whether light crude or heavy crude, but contain oil in commercial quantities,” Christie said.

“So that will only happen when the people will obviously be consulted as to whether or not we should move ahead and drill.”

Minnis, the MP for Killarney, said the government was flip-flopping on oil drilling.

He said strict regulations must be enacted before an exploratory well is dug to ensure that the environment is protected.

“It’s a very dangerous road to tread without having proper regulations in place,” he said.

“We’ve seen what happened in the Gulf [of Mexico]. For something like that to happen in The Bahamas, where 80 percent of our employment depends on tourism, whether direct or indirect, that can be a disaster for this nation.

“Our position [is] no drilling at all until all the regulations are in place to ensure complete safety so that the Bahamian marine resources, tourism, etc, are completely protected.”

On Sunday, Dorsett said he does not expect an oil referendum before the second half of 2015.

He said the exploration data needed to verify if the country has commercially viable oil reserves would not be ready until the end of 2014 or early 2015.

BPC was granted five licenses for oil exploration in April 2007, at the tail end of Christie’s first term as prime minister.

The company has reportedly invested more than $50 million in the country to date; however, most of that has been limited to 3D seismic testing or mapping.

March 12, 2013

thenassauguardian

Caribbean Blog International

The most fundamental characteristic of the modern Bahamas isn’t tradition, ambition, or national pride as we like to pretend... ...but rather shame

A Look Into The Shadows

“What happened to these masses, to this people? For forty years it had been driven through the desert, with threats and promises, with imaginary terrors and imaginary rewards. But where was the Promised Land?”

– Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon

 

 

By PACO NUNEZ

Tribune News Editor

pnunez@tribunemedia.net

 

 

 

THE pervasive sunshine for which this country is known casts deep shadows where over the years, poisonous secrets have accumulated.

 

So accustomed are we to our description in the vacation brochures – a welcoming, exuberant, God-fearing people – that even we have come to mistake this mask for our own face.

 

But under its official, picture-postcard skin, the Bahamas has a troubled soul.

 

It has become a place filled with pain, rage and despair. A place where the sunlight blankets the surface but does not penetrate.

 

And who are the people who live in these shadows?

 

They are the fatherless young and the mothers of dead children. Victims of sexual predation and hostages in their own homes.

 

They are participants in unspeakable acts, in a constant struggle to live with themselves.

 

People who spend their whole lives paying for mistakes they were never equipped to avoid.

 

They are the wrongfully condemned and the zealous executioners. The murderers and the next of kin.

 

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it means you are one of the privileged few.

 

Thanks to wealth, status or just plain luck, so far you’ve been spared contact with the tide of destructive social forces that is shaping the modern Bahamas.

 

But it also means you’re in the minority, out of touch with where this country is really headed.

 

The unwelcome truth is that 40 years after Independence, we find ourselves farther than ever from the Promised Land which was promised to us then.

 

And, what do we really have to show for it but an arsenal of superficial explanations, skilful deflections and short-term remedies?

 

Very few are willing to soil their hands tugging at the roots of our deterioration; willing to remove the mask and look the truth in the face.

 

One such is Dr David Allen, for whom brutal honesty is a necessary ingredient in a workable solution.

 

The Bahamas, he says, is being taken over by an “ominous and pervasive culture of violence and destruction”.

 

Reporting on the findings of his research in 2010, he said: “We found a powerful sense of anger amongst us Bahamians. Throughout the three-year study participants talked about ‘outting’, which was the word for killing; poisoning – women particularly – and suicide.

 

“A few months ago we had a young girl commit suicide. We have five of her friends who want to do the same thing right now.

 

“Bahamians are saying I don’t feel the murders anymore; it’s just what is supposed to happen. They build a wall in their heart.

 

“In a group of 10 to 15 year olds, they don’t expect to live long. As a result (they think), you do what you can, get as much money, and then if you get killed or kill somebody, that’s it.

 

“Most disturbing is we found a number of young girls who had no compunction about giving their bodies for money. They pay for their education, but they also pay for their parents’ air conditioning, refrigeration and also their cable.

 

“The point is they had no feeling about it. They said, ‘Doc, that is what you call survival in the Bahamas.’ That was very, very disturbing.”

 

For Dr Allen, the difficult economic circumstances of the last few years did not beget an upsurge in crime and violence, as politicians like to claim.

 

Rather, material hardship unleashed forces that have been building in the shadows for more than three decades.

 

These forces were born and nurtured during the drug crisis of the 1980s, when more than two-thirds of the cocaine that made its way into the United States passed through the Bahamas, leaving in its wake a multitude of hopeless addicts and converts to the cult of easy money.

 

The toxins have been in our system ever since, slowly poisoning our sociocultural values, giving rise to ever more destructive behaviours and adding to the tally of silent victims.

 

The result is that the most fundamental characteristic of the modern Bahamas, the thing that really makes it tick, isn’t tradition, ambition, or national pride as we like to pretend, but rather shame.

 

We have become, Dr Allen says, a shame-based society, and the things we love to condemn in our neighbour – dishonesty, callousness, aggression – turn out to be necessary consequences of this fact.

 

Shame, he explains, is caused by “impacted hurt” – pain that has been trapped or blocked from being worked out along its natural course. Abuse that is swept into the corner, neglect that is hidden away.

 

“The shame response to this kind of hurt leads to self worthlessness, helplessness, hopelessness – depression and feelings of victimisation,” he says.

 

“We defend from intolerable shame through anger and a false self that is concerned with self absorption, ego gratification, revenge and aggressive control.

 

“This ultimately manifests as passive or overt aggression, and finally violence.”

 

He notes that nearly every person he interviewed who was involved in a serious crime had suffered some severe form of physical or sexual abuse.

 

One of his colleagues added that shame is “like a hot potato” – impossible to hold for long, hefted onto someone else at the earliest opportunity in an effort to seek temporary relief. And so the cycle of shame and violence is perpetuated exponentially.

 

If acts such as murder and suicide are not events but rather processes, it follows that to end the cycle of violence we must interrupt its progression before it manifests itself in action.

 

But if this is right, our after-the-fact, retribution based approach to justice is probably doing more harm than good – injecting even more anger and incentive for revenge into the cycle.

 

The same goes for efforts to stem the destructive tide with job creation, funding grants, and training programmes.

 

These are all helpful to an extent, but economics alone can’t heal shame.

 

Simply throwing money at the problem often does nothing but fuel a shortsighted and corrosive consumerism which itself arose as a strategy to conceal shame.

 

“Love is the antidote to shame,” Dr Allen says. “If we can apply love to the hurt, then we melt shame and stop the cycle of murderous rage and violence.”

 

His ground-breaking strategy for doing so, “The Family”, is named after what he believes was one of the most calamitous casualties of the drug years – the stable two-parent household.

 

The group has been running for six years and now has around 60 adult members, the majority of whom simply walked in one day feeling compelled to unburden themselves of the pain that was threatening to consume them.

 

A guest at their weekly meeting last Wednesday, I was profoundly moved not just by their testimonies of suffering, but also the disarming atmosphere of openness and honesty.

 

In a culture that has become dominated by self-denial, where everyone wears a disguise, I witnessed people giving voice for the first time to deep anxieties, profound hurt, closely held secrets.

 

And I watched them being welcomed with sympathy and understanding into a group of fellow travellers; into an organically developing support system in which positive emotions like gratitude and benevolence can flourish; into a Family.

 

The group is at once a microcosm of the problem – the full range of torments that afflict our people is represented – and a testament to the solution.

 

Dr Allen’s impressive results speak for themselves. But the programme as it stands is far too small to hold back the tide on its own.

 

So the real question is, do the rest of us have the courage to support his efforts?

 

Are we capable of facing up to what we’ve become, or will we continue to pretend that all’s well in the land of sun and sea, hoping thereby to attract sufficient tourist dollars to paper over the cracks?

 

 

What do you think?

 

Email questions or comments to pnunez@tribunemedia.net, or join the conversation at: http://www.tribune242.com/news/opinion/insight/

 

March 04, 2013

 

Tribune242

 

Caribbean Blog International

 

The Bahamas 2010 Census Report provides innumerable opportunities for government agencies, private researchers ...and the general public ...to better understand our Bahamas

The Bahamas in numbers

The Nassau Guardian Editorial

Our census, a vital and complicated undertaking, describes the identity of The Bahamas through numbers.  It is also indicative of trends and analysis of data based on successive census reports.

For The Bahamas this not only means comparison on a regional scale, but also between our islands.  Remarkably, this is the 19th decennial census to be conducted in The Bahamas.  Early census counts are not likely to be comparable to recent data due to likely discrepancies in survey methods, but they nonetheless provide value to the history of The Bahamas.

Interestingly, the census report makes note of the first census in 1722 whereby 74 percent of the population was white and 26 percent black, compared to the 2010 census whereby 91 percent identified themselves as black, five percent white, and two percent as of mixed race.  Such an extreme reorientation of the racial makeup of a country identifies the need to reexamine assumptions about who we are.

Population statistics are perhaps the most widely recognized outcome of a census.  For those living in New Providence, it is all too obvious that the island accounts for 246,329 people or 70 percent of the total Bahamian population.  With an additional 35,497 people since 2000, it is all too apparent that the roads are more congested, lines a bit longer and the housing prices just a bit higher.

But herein lies the importance of data availability.  While New Providence may have experienced the greatest increase in people, several other islands had a much higher percent change in population growth – take Abaco, which experienced an increase of 4,054 people or nearly 31 percent to a population of 17,224 compared to 2000.  Though such an increase would be nominal for New Providence over 10 years, in Abaco the additional people stress local infrastructure from power generation to road maintenance.

The Bahamas’ greatest challenge is providing and maintaining basic infrastructure across the populated islands.  Even with all the controversy, Abaco needed a new power generating facility and still suffers from countless power failures.  While the population congregates in New Providence, growth and a retraction of growth on some islands must guide government expenditure and planning.

Likewise, the government must accept the diversity of residents living in The Bahamas and amend its immigration policies.  Seventeen percent of the population claims citizenship elsewhere, the majority or 64 percent were from Haiti.  Though the census claims to account for residents regardless of immigration status, it is difficult to imagine that the census was able to account for all residents of known Haitian communities such as those found in Abaco.

The Nassau Guardian has reported on specific data tables such as Internet access and usage, health insurance and access to toilets at private dwellings.  There are numerous other tables where trends can be extrapolated on for use in education planning, the looming retirement of baby boomers and their future healthcare needs, marriage trends and reproduction rates.

A copy of the Census 2010 Report became publicly available online on Monday, October 15.  Such data provides innumerable opportunities for government agencies, private researchers and the general public to better understand our Bahamas.

March 07, 2013

thenassauguardian editorial

Dr. Myles Munroe, and the women who men are looking for...

The Watchwoman: Myles Munroe's Dangerous Doctrine For Women

 
By NOELLE NICOLLS




A sermon delivered by Dr Myles Munroe, president and founder of the Bahamas Faith Ministries International (BFMI), has been making its way around the social sphere generating a lot of debate. I watched the video because it was shared by a close friend, even though the online group “Meeting In The Ladies Room” posted it with a message stating: “All Ladies Regardless Of Marital Status Should Watch This!”

After watching the sermon the first, second, third and fourth time, with an open mind, I still could not bring myself to understand, why and how so many women were giving it rave reviews. One woman declared the message to be “profound and powerful!!”. Another woman said: “Amazing word. I can’t wait to show this to my sons.” And yet another called for the message to be played on a “bull horn”. She said it was so “absolutely wonderful” the mighty word had to get out.

I was completely perplexed by these responses, because the same sermon that brought these women to a spiritual orgasm made me want to go out gunning to slay the wolf. I was not completely alone, although certainly in the minority, for there were a handful of dissenting voices amongst the faithful flock who thought the message was outright offensive.

Dr Munroe’s sermon speaks to the story of Adam and Eve, the first marriage in history, according to the Christian creation story, and shares lessons on the role of men and women in relationships.

In the words of Dr Munroe: “The third thing God told the man - Genesis 2:15 - is cultivate. Cultivate means to bring out the best in everything around you, to maximise the potential of everything around you, to make everything fruitful. He only said that to the male. That is why God will never give a man a finished woman.

“The male was created by God to create what he wants. The woman you are looking for, brother, does not exist. She is in your head. Your job is to take the raw material you married and cultivate her into the woman in your head. So if you have been married for 20 years and you still don’t like the product you get, that is your fault,” said Dr Munroe.

When are we going to move away from following doctrines that make women objects in a man’s world. Not only is Dr Munroe explicit in referring to a wife as a product of her husband, he says men are entitled by divine decree to create the women they want.

Such is the conditioning that occurs in abusive relationships, where men tell their women what clothes to wear, how to style their hair, the friends they can maintain and the places they can go. These are the conditions that foster relationships of power and control, the foundation of all abuse. And while the message is gendered in Dr Munroe’s context, it has broader meaning in the context of healthy relationships, because the same doctrine applied in reverse creates the same conditions for abuse.

Speaking about Jesus’ relationship to his wife, Dr Munroe said: “Jesus Christ is a real man, a real man. He has a wife, a beautiful woman. Her name was Ecclesia. He said about his wife, he said husband love your wife like I love my wife. He tells us how to do it. He says you wash her with the word, and then you remove every spot, every wrinkle, every blemish and then present her to yourself. That is mine, I did that. I produced that. Look at her. Look at her. That’s my baby.”

Our leaders need to start using language to affirm the value of men and women and their equal standing in the eyes of God; to affirm the individuality of every man and woman. Our leaders need to consider the way in which their language socialises impressionable young girls and boys, who are trying to negotiate gender relationships in their youth. His message is dangerous not only because it objectifies women, but also because it lays the foundation for the subjugation of women.

Patriarchal religious doctrines have been used for centuries as reason to deprive women of their individual freedoms, and we must never forget. Male interpretations of religious texts have been used to justify some of the most persistent and pervasive human rights abuses. And while organised religion has evolved since its brutish origins, the church has not shed all of its misguided ways.

It is in the language used by church leaders like Dr Munroe that we see those lingering remnants of the patriarchal order, in which robbed men “twisted and distorted holy scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy”. It is this language that often provides the foundation and justification for the abuse of women throughout the world.

Human rights activist Jimmy Carter, the former US president, recently spoke to this very issue when he stated emphatically, along with elders from many faiths: “The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a higher authority, is unacceptable.

“At their most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.”

In Dr Munroe’s sermon, he speaks about God placing man in his presence. He was not referring to man in the sense of the human race, but rather men, represented in Adam. Eden, as in the Garden of Eden, he said represents an environment, a place of divine presence, an open door to God, where Adam was placed.

Dr Munroe further described the spiritual hierarchy that exists between man, woman and God. Referencing scripture, he said God also gave the man his word. When God commanded Adam not to “touch the tree (of knowledge)”, God never spoke to Eve. The significance, Dr Munroe suggested, is that the male is the only one to have been blessed by God with the word (a direct relationship to God). A wife, though she too is created in the image and likeness of God, has to wait to be taught by her husband, for only he stands in God’s presence and was blessed by the word.

In response to a lonely dissenter on the video feed, one faithful follower wrote: “If you find this appalling or offensive don’t read the Bible.” Part of me believes there is wisdom in her response. Another part of me wants to believe there is hope for women of the Christian faith who reject male interpretations of holy scriptures that establish gender hierarchies and justify the superiority of men.

I will certainly question any doctrine that creates a foundation and justification for the abuse of women throughout the world, no matter how divinely ordained the messenger claims to be.

Noelle Nicolls is the Tribune Features Editor. Her Watchwoman column explores genders issues in politics and culture from a feminist perspective. Follow Noelle online at Twitter.com/noelle_elleon.

March 05, 2013

Tribune 242

Caribbean Blog International

Nassau besieged?

The dignity and equality of gays and lesbians
Front Porch
BY SIMON

Recall the hysteria and hate-drenched anti-gay demonstrations of the previous two decades protesting gay and lesbian visitors cruising to the country to experience our Bahamian hospitality.

Some of the gay-bashers invoked the narrative of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19.  Genesis, like other books of the Hebrew Scriptures, consists of numerous literary genres and devices.

Genesis contains not one, but two, creation accounts, literary renderings crafted by ancient scribes to convey theological meaning.  Today, literalists still believe these to be factual accounts, though the science of evolution demonstrates otherwise. Sodom and Gomorrah recalls an ancient Jewish prohibition against sodomy and homosexuality.  Today, modern science offers compelling facts and hypotheses on the nature, complexity and range of human sexuality.

Still, literalists have the right to entertain fact-free opinions on the genesis of life and the genesis of homosexuality much as racists of old utilized Christian Scripture, pseudo-science and bigotry to justify slavery and white supremacy.

Eventually, the homophobes will be written into history as intellectual cave dwellers whose primitive world views were exorcised by the evolution of human ethical consciousness and moral progress.

Antediluvian

Those who marched fervently in support of segregation, even in living memory for Jim Crow in America and apartheid in South Africa, have seen the judgement of contemporaries and of history on their antediluvian theologies and philosophies.

Which brings us back to the anti-gay demonstrations at the City of Nassau, and to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

While reflections on sodomy and homosexuality as referenced in Genesis 19 dominate the exegesis of the story in various quarters, there is another theological interpretation.

For various theologians and preachers, inhospitality is the great or greater moral failing at Sodom and Gomorrah.  This insight seemed lost on the unwelcoming protestors who gathered downtown, targeting a select group of visitors in a demonstration of inhospitality, and incivility by some.

It is revealing that the clerical clique and their claque of crusaders were more moved to demonstrate against gays in port for a few hours, than they have been to protest the sometimes orgy of nubile and half-naked, stoned and drunk, fornicating and gambling, straight spring breakers in town for several weeks.

Apparently, certain favorite “sins” give some moralists goose bumps, titillating and inflaming their moral loins more than other sins.  But back to our story.  It is April 14, 1998.  Here is LifeSiteNews.com’s read of the day’s events: “Besieged by gay cruise ships, Bahama residents held a protest Tuesday at the arrival of yet another gay ‘Love Boat’ on its shores. About 300 demonstrators from a group called Save the Bahamas crowded Prince George Wharf where the cruise ship SeaBreeze [sic] had docked with its 800 lesbian passengers.”

Nassau besieged?  One might have imagined from this report, that the pleasant sounding SeaBreeze, populated mostly by lesbian passengers armed with sun tan lotion, greenbacks and piña coladas, was another battleship in a gay armada intent on laying siege to “Bahama residents”.

Exaggerated

Thankfully, the cruise did not prove even as threatening as the exaggerated story of Colonel Andrew Deveaux Jr.’s brief siege of Nassau in 1783.  Still, there was a scuffle of sorts as reported by LifeSiteNews.com, revealing who was actually besieged and by whom: “When eight of the SeaBreeze passengers decided to brave the demonstration and headed toward the straw market, the crowd turned and headed toward them, yelling ‘Go back. Go back.’  Five of the women turned and headed back toward the ship; three charged ahead, and were followed for several blocks by a group of six protesters.”

Some years later, in 2004, following another gay cruise, and in response to Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe, then President of the Bahamas Christian Council (BCC) Rev. Dr. William Thompson offered a sermonette from the Mount of Ridiculousness.

Wilchcombe was quoted in The Tribune: “We live in a democracy, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and expression thereof.”  Reacting in a statement carried by this journal, the cleric attacked long-established democratic principles and the Constitution.

“Rev. Thompson said while The Bahamas is a democratic nation, ‘It is not true that everyone is entitled to express their opinion in any way they wish, this would result in anarchy...’”

Yes, there are limits to freedom of speech.  Yet he continued: “‘A democracy, while safeguarding the concerns of the minority, is committed to carrying out the will of the majority of its citizens.’”

He got it partially right.  But the part he got wrong, both on ethical and constitutional grounds, is appalling, the mindset of a theocrat, and not a democrat living in a pluralistic society.

Slavery was the will of the majority in the United States for centuries.  This did not make it moral that the majority approved of the denial of rights to a minority.

The tyranny of the majority has led to the persecution of minorities throughout history, including Christians, as testified to by St. Paul and the early church.  Religious freedom is dependent on the protection of minority rights, rights denied still in countries where Christians are being killed today.

If the world subscribed to Thompson’s views, the suppression of the views and expressions of religious freedom by Christian minorities would be acceptable in countries where there are non-Christian majorities.

Thompson, seemingly happily ignorant of the Constitution, thundered: “More importantly, we are not dealing with an opinion, we are instead dealing with a deviant lifestyle that is offensive to the majority of Bahamians.”

Whatever Thompson may think of the manner in which gays and lesbians live, they have as much right to voice their opinions, express their love, form associations and enjoy the freedoms that he enjoys.  While many find his opinions and actions idiotic and offensive, he has a right to appear foolish and uninformed.

Ignorant

Notice Thompson’s cleverly ignorant conflation of “opinion” and “lifestyle”.  What he seems to be saying to gays and lesbians is that their freedom of speech should be limited, that they should shut the hell up, because the majority doesn’t like their lifestyle.

Disturbingly, Thompson is now executive chairman of ZNS, overseeing a state broadcast media supposedly committed to a free exchange of viewpoints.

Bishop Sam Greene, another former BCC president, notoriously intimated that if the government sanctioned gay and lesbian marriages, he would follow the example of Guy Fawkes, who, in 1605, attempted to blow up Parliament.

While Thompson appeared unhappy with gays and lesbians expressing themselves, this writer does not recall his publicly rebuking Greene for comments that may have constituted an incitement to violence and anarchy.

Much of today’s rabidly anti-gay agenda is led by those whose world views are pre-modern and pre-Enlightenment, when gays and lesbians were persecuted and demonized, before the protection of minorities was codified in the rule of law and when the likes of Guy Fawkes were stoking verbal and literal fireworks.

The virulent anti-gay crusaders were historic throwbacks even when they were demonstrating their inhospitality to gay cruise ship passengers.  Today, as gays and lesbians are increasingly seen first and foremost as fellow human beings, and not as objects of derision, the homophobes appear even more dated.

Gays and lesbians are neighbors and co-workers; politicians, police officers and pastors; volunteers and role models; heroes and heroines, friends and family; parents and life-partners, who are owed mutual respect and basic equality by right of their citizenship as children of God and as fellow Bahamians.

The considerable shift in global consciousness continues to move in the direction of upholding the value and dignity of human beings based on the content of one’s character, and not the happenstance of race, gender or sexual orientation.

• frontporchguardian@gmail.com , bahamapundit

February 28, 2013

thenassauguardian

Caribbean Blog International

The Bahamas needs to determine its position on the death penalty ...says Bahamas Bar Council President, Ruth Bowe-Darville

'Time To Decide On Death Penalty'

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Bar Council President, Ruth Bowe-Darville, is calling on the Bahamas to take a firm legislative position on the death penalty.

Her remarks came during a meeting of the Bahamas Constitutional Commission yesterday where she represented the Council’s position on several areas of constitutional reform.

“The country needs to determine its position on the death penalty,” Mrs. Bowe-Darville said, “We are being urged on by several international agencies that firmly pronounce against the death penalty and then there is the legal precedent of Pratt and Morgan vs The Attorney General of Jamaica that has reduced many sentences to life imprisonment due to the inordinate and excessive delay in carrying out a lawful sentence.”

She also warned against the haste of implementing the Caribbean Court of Justice to replace the Privy Council as the most influential body to advise the head of state of the nation.

“Regrettably, there is no firm resolve by Bar members for replacing the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice. However, whether we sign on to the CCJ or retain the Privy Council, the decisions of our final court must be observed by the Executive as well as the judicial and legislative branches of our country, so that respect for the Rule of Law is entrenched in our culture. Perhaps, now is not the time for the CCJ,” she said.

Mrs. Bowe-Darville also called for the establishment of several new appointments with the Judicial system, including an Office of an Independent Director of Public Prosecutions, an Office of Public Defender, and the establishment of an Ombudsman.

“In re-assessing the needs of our country and being forever cognizant of the prevailing social and economic ills in our society, the introduction of an Office of an Independent Director of Public Prosecutions as an entrenched provision of our Constitution is welcomed. Such an office should in principle alleviate the burden on the Office of the Attorney General in the area of criminal prosecution. However, such an office must be given the autonomy to perform the task, sans political interference,” she said.

“Further the proposition should also extend to the establishment of an Office of Public Defender. Such a department could ultimately be a boost to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, it will complement it. It is proposed there be a recommendation for the establishment of an Ombudsman. This office, like that of the independent Director of Public Prosecutor, will require the appointment of a person with a significant degree of independence who is charged with representing the interests of the public by investigating and addressing the complaints of maladministration or violation of rights. The Ombudsman generally seeks to promote and protect human rights,” she said.

February 26, 2013

Tribune 242 

Caribbean Blog International