While Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were pledging their support for LGBT rights at the Commonwealth Youth Forum in London last week, a Commonwealth territory was grappling with the after-effects of a high court ruling declaring its laws on homosexuality “unconstitutional”.
Earlier this month Justice Devindra Rampersad called Sections 13 and 16 of the Sexual Offences Act 1986 of Trinidad and Tobago “unconstitutional, illegal, null, void, invalid and of no effect to the extent that these laws criminalise any acts constituting consensual sexual conduct between adults”.
The Catholic Church has supported de-criminalising homosexual acts, while continuing to view them as immoral. “Buggery is a serious moral offence, but it should not put someone in prison for 25 years,” said Archbishop Charles Jason Gordon of Port of Spain in a statement after the judge’s ruling. This is the penalty incurred by someone “who commits the offence of buggery” under Section 13, part of the body of laws inherited from Trinidad and Tobago’s British colonial past.
Citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Archbishop Gordon explained: “The homosexual act is intrinsically disordered because it is closed to life. Yet homosexuals should be protected and we should ensure they are not subjected to discrimination or violence.”
The Church in the country has long been committed to social justice. Catholic parishes and organisations routinely offer food, medicines, counselling and other services to anyone in need, regardless of ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.
Urging the faithful to “think with the Church”, Archbishop Gordon noted that at the United Nations in 2008 the Holy See declared that it “continues to advocate that every sign of unjust discrimination towards homosexual persons should be avoided and urges states to do away with criminal penalties against them”.
The initial action against the state was brought by UK-based and Trinidad-born activist Jason Jones in February 2017.
Since the ruling, public and social media discussions have been emotive, prompting the president of the republic, Paula-Mae Weekes, to “urge those participating in the debate to bear in mind that while all of us are entitled to hold and express robustly our point of view, we must be careful not to damage the national psyche by inadvertently inciting victimisation, bigotry and violence”.
The ruling does not automatically remove or amend the laws, and the state intends to appeal it. “The final verdict,” says the Law Association, “is yet to be determined.” Still, comments on social and traditional media reveal fears that the ruling has opened the way to legalising same-sex marriage in Trinidad and Tobago. “These may well be strategies that are tied together,” said Archbishop Gordon. “We need to deal with them separately. We will oppose same-sex marriage in every way possible.”
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