(Guyana) The debate on decriminalising homosexuality – conscience vote, not party affiliation

Decriminalising homosexuality is a heated debate today all around the world. Recently, two distinguished Guyanese: Sir Shridath Ramphal(photo below), a former minister of foreign affairs and former secretary general of the Commonwealth and Ralph Ramkarran, former Speaker of the National Assembly, argued that Guyana and the Caribbean should decriminalise homosexuality.

Guyana’s National Assembly by motion also established a special select committee to address this question. This was a bold move by the National Assembly, since this is a provocative and emotional issue that is deeply polarising in all of the Caricom countries.
The United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) has mandated Guyana to adjust its laws in relation to corporal punishment in schools, the death penalty for crimes, and laws against homosexuality and to bring them in compliance with the human rights guidelines. The move to allow a special select committee to address these issues in our Parliament is as a result of the guidance from the UNHRC.

Times Notebook recently came out in support of the banning of corporal punishment in our schools. Times Notebook is also against the death penalty. We believe that the debate on the decriminalisation of homosexuality will be highly emotive. We believe that the position of Sir Shridath and Ralph Ramkarr an to decriminalise homosexuality is brave and reasonable and is consistent with the 2009 United Nations Resolution to decriminalise homosexuality. The USA and 66 other countries supported the UN Resolution.

“Unbiblical”

Recently, a South African pastor warned Jamaicans not to go down the road to decriminalise homosexuality. In Uganda, lawmakers want to subject homosexuals to the death penalty. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe vilifies gays, lesbians, and transgender as “unbiblical” and “worse than dogs”. His characterisation of homosexuality is shared by many African leaders.

The debate relating to decriminalisation of homosexuality is not new. The Old Testament and Islam forbid sex between men. Plato who lived up to 327 years before Christ rejected homosexuality. But Aristotle who died in 322BC defended homosexuality. The Netherlands, France, and other countries with legal systems based on France’s Napoleonic code, however, removed “homosexual offences” from criminal sanctions centuries ago. Other countries in Europe also were early in decriminalising homosexuality. These include Poland (1932), Denmark (1933), and Sweden (1944).

But England, Wales and Canada decriminalised homosexuality only in 1967. Scotland did not decriminalise homosexuality until 1980. It took a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2003 before all State Statutes decriminalised homosexuality in the USA. Nicaragua abolished the crime of “sodomy” in November 2007.

Progressive developments

There have also been progressive developments enshrining provisions against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the constitutions of Ecuador, Fiji, Portugal and South Africa. The Supreme Court of Nepal in December 2007 issued directive orders to the government of Nepal to end discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Also in December 2007, the Bolivian Constituent Assembly approved a clause that would make Bolivia the first country in the world to prohibit in its constitution discrimination on the basis of gender identity. The Supreme Court in India ruled in 2009 that the law against homosexuality is unconstitutional.

Still, there are 76 countries in the world where homosexuality is still a crime. Guyana and all the Caricom countries fall in this category. There are also five countries in the world where homosexuality is a crime punishable by death.
Laws criminalising homosexuality exist on all continents, albeit in different forms. In some countries, consensual sex between adults of the same sex is criminalised as “sodomy”, “the abominable crime of buggery”, “crimes against nature”, “deviant sexual intercourse”, “corruption on earth”, “outrages on decency”, “unnatural acts”, or other such terms. In others, vague provisions such as “immoral acts” or “public scandal” are used to criminalise sexual behaviour of lesbians, gay men and same-sex practising, bisexual or transgender people.

Many acts of discrimination and violence are committed against people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, same-sex practising and transgender people because they are perceived as immoral. In many parts of the world, homosexuality is considered a sin and same-sex relations are dubbed “unChristian” or “unIslamic”. Many of the criminalisation laws dating back to the Victorian period of the British Empire derive from Christian religious law. Sumit Baudh notes that “the case law from India makes frequent references to bestiality, buggery and Biblical notions of the sin of Gomorrah and the sin of Sodom”.

Capital offences

In Kuwait on January 22, 2000, two women writers and their male publisher were fined and sentenced to two months in prison for writings that were said to cause harm to religion and to morality because they mentioned lesbian relationships. In March 2000, the Misdemeanours Appeal Court handed down fines to the two women. The Iranian penal code makes particular types of same-sex sexual relations capital offences under the category of hodoud crimes – crimes against divine will, for which the penalty is prescribed by Islamic law.

In December 2011, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia, the Harper Government of Canada announced they will work with Commonwealth countries where homosexuality remains a crime to decriminalise homosexuality. The same announcement has been made by UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who threatened to withhold development assistance from countries unless they decriminalise homosexuality.
Times Notebook is eagerly awaiting the debate in Guyana’s National Assembly. It will be an opportunity for those who take a “rights-approach” to fundamental human rights and those who take a strict moral approach, arguing that morality takes precedence even in consensual behaviour in private. Times Notebook urges all civil groups, not just the churches, to become engage in determining the way forward for Guyana. This is an issue that must not be decided only by the politicians, but by all Guyanese.

We believe that the debate and the decision should not be based on political affiliation or ideological approaches. Times Notebook believes that this subject should be one in which our MPs debate and decide based on their own views, guided by their conscience, and not merely following party dictate.

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