The Tribune

By SIMON

A friend recalled a harrowing story of love and lost. Some decades ago a friend of his, an African American gay man then in his late 40s, who lived in the US, recalled the worst and most heartrending day of his life.

His beloved male partner of many years, with whom he intended to spend the rest of his life, left their apartment to go to the corner mom and pop store, a mere three minute walk, within sight of the front entrance of their apartment building. His partner promised that he would be right back.

He began to grow concerned because his partner was taking a long time to return from the convenience store. Then he heard police sirens. He went down to the front entrance of the building and saw a small crowd gathering at the store. He hurried over.

Lying on the ground dead in a pool of blood was his life partner, accidentally shot during an armed robbery of the store. “He was the love of my life”, exclaimed the surviving partner, who had no legal right to identify his partner’s body or to settle his partner’s estate because they could not marry.

There is a moral arrogance of those who believe that heterosexual love is somehow superior to the love of a same-sex couple, whose love is seen by some as an abomination, as sinful, as inferior. This arrogance extends to the belief that civil marriage should be the sole preserve of heterosexuals in a democratic society.

Was the man who was grief-stricken by his partner’s murder any less real because they were gay? Was the hole in his heart any less real? Were his memories less precious? Is he not as human as anyone else?

His love deserved no less respect because he may have been born gay. The blood that flowed from his partner’s body was not gay or straight blood. It was human blood from someone made in the image and likeness of God, a fundamental dimension of which is the capacity to love and to be loved in return.

After the failed equality referendum in 2016, a group of pastors proclaimed victory, boasting that they had stopped the gay agenda from advancing in The Bahamas in the form of same-sex marriage, of which they bizarrely thought that question four was a stalking horse.

For some pastors and others who claimed that their main concern was question four, the defeat of the other three questions was welcomed, even though they could not boast as loudly about their not-so-hidden agenda of misogyny and sexism.

For these individuals, including many women, a woman will never be equal to a man, because their Bible and supposedly God have told them so in no uncertain terms.

The glee of a good number of clerics on the number four question was amusing and odd. Their imagined victory was not even Pyrrhic.

It was hollow, empty, shallow. After the referendum, then President of the Court of Appeal, Dame Anita Allen, outlined in a reasoned and cogent presentation on the possible constitutional grounds which may allow for same-sex and non-traditional marriage.

It was refreshing to have an intellectual and intelligent argument based in law, in marked contrast to the anti-intellectual, unintelligent and wild-eyed arguments by homophobes and bigots dedicated to the demonisation of gays and lesbians.

Dame Anita spoke on her own behalf, did not indicate how she might rule on a case or cases involving traditional marriage and also offered a brief understanding of the international, cultural and sociological context of contemporary marriage.

During her address entitled, “Law in a Changing Society: Reconstructing Marriage”, delivered as the 8th Annual Eugene Dupuch Distinguished Lecture for the Eugene Dupuch Law School, Dame Anita noted: “The juristic nature of marriage in The Bahamas may not simply turn on whether there is a definition of marriage in the Marriage Act, or whether the English Common Law definition of marriage was received as a part of our law, but that it may ultimately turn on whether marriage is a constitutional right guaranteed to all.”

Dame Anita added: “Logically, any debate on the issue should sensibly and pragmatically center on one principle and one only: equality of treatment under the law.”

She stated: “This issue of the recognition of non-traditional marriage I know, may be blasphemous to some and uncomfortable for others, but given our changed society as noted, our belief in the freedom of the individual and equal protection under the law, can we in good conscience continue the ambivalent stance of accepting these principles as pertaining to some on the one hand, and on the other, opposing their application to others?”

Unsurprisingly, Dame Anita was quickly attacked for her remarks. Supposedly she is a part of the worldwide conspiracy to advance the supposed homosexual agenda.

Law School principal Tonya Bastian Galanis, also supposedly a part of the conspiracy in the minds of some, had to write a letter to the editor explaining the facts about the timing of the lecture and to refute the “fallacious” notion of a “hidden agenda”.

The rabid homophobes who see the colors of the rainbow everywhere they look, claim that there is a worldwide gay agenda. There is one. It is the same agenda Dame Anita referenced when she invoked the spirit and legacy of the brilliant Eugene Dupuch: a fierce commitment to social justice and equality.

The agenda of the fundamentalists is a Christian triumphalism in which their read of and proof-texting of mostly the Hebrew Scriptures, often aided by pseudo-science, should trump reason and civil law.

The so-called gay agenda is a profoundly human agenda, shared by minorities who sought civil rights and women seeking equal rights. This agenda is one of human dignity, of securing basic rights and freedoms, including the right to marry; of protection from discrimination and violence and to be treated as full citizens.

The mostly young gay men and women massacred at a gay night club in Orlando in 2016, only wanted to be left alone, to enjoy themselves with friends and loved ones. Some of the killed were parents, whose children now grieve their loss.

There is a continuum between the hate-filled, unloving and dehumanizing rhetoric of those, including an abundance of religious leaders, whose words can incite others to brutal rhetoric and violent actions toward gays and lesbians.

Some years ago, a prominent Bahamian religious leader declared that he would blow up Parliament, Gay Fawkes-style, if same-sex marriage was approved.

Tellingly, his incitement to violence was not publicly rebuked by most religious leaders, including those hell-bent on casting gays and lesbians as profoundly other and not embracing them as fellow citizens.

Those Bahamian pastors who give vent to their seething homophobia should be more careful in their rhetoric and preaching.

Thankfully, increasing numbers of those in the LGBT community and their families are no longer cowed by the hate and bile of certain pastors. They are expressing and voicing their love in committed relationships.

It is extraordinary the degree to which many pastors only or mostly fixate on the sexual aspect of the love between gays and lesbians. Curiously, it is amazing the degree to which certain pastors become so excitable about same-sex relationships.

Like heterosexuals, gays and lesbians in loving relationships have many dimensions to their human love. That they now seek the right to marry and to invest their love in such a committed relationship is good for them and for society.

In the end such love and equality under the law will prevail. After this battle for equality is eventually won, The Bahamas will be just fine and we will be a much better country.

Next Week: Person of the Year 2024

• This column first appeared in 2016. It is reprinted with some changes.