Rhon­dor Dowlat

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is be­ing ac­cused of call­ing at­ten­tion to her gov­ern­ment's ho­mo­pho­bia and, by so do­ing, bring­ing shame on T&T.Ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Coali­tion Ad­vo­cat­ing for In­clu­sion of Sex­u­al Ori­en­ta­tion (Caiso) Col­in Robin­son stat­ed this yes­ter­day.

"The Prime Min­is­ter em­bar­rassed her­self on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage by say­ing that her Gov­ern­ment prac­tices hu­man rights by ref­er­en­dum. If it's pop­u­lar to hate one so­cial group, or pass laws against what they can do with their own bod­ies or who they can love, the Gov­ern­ment will just go along. Just like left­handers, slaves, Hin­dus, Mus­lims, Black peo­ple, chil­dren born out of wed­lock, Ras­tas, Shouter Bap­tists–the young gay and les­bian peo­ple of this na­tion will have to en­dure un­just laws un­til pub­lic opin­ion changes," he said.

On Tues­day, at a fo­rum in New York to en­cour­age in­vest­ment in T&T, US-based ra­dio host­ess Lak­sh­mi Singh pressed Per­sad-Bisses­sar and in­quired about T&T's busi­ness cli­mate and laws that crim­i­nalise ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty.

Robin­son said he be­lieved it was an op­por­tu­ni­ty for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to do two things: to stand up for equal­i­ty and the pro­tec­tion of the law for all cit­i­zens; and to send a wel­com­ing mes­sage to a range of in­vestors con­cerned about T&T's busi­ness cli­mate.

"If the Prime Min­is­ter is se­ri­ous about the dis­tinc­tion be­tween de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tion, as she said in New York, and about her op­po­si­tion to the lat­ter, she will put that in­to law.

She can eas­i­ly re­deem the lega­cy she leaves for the young peo­ple of this na­tion who are strug­gling with their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion and gen­der iden­ti­ty, to whom she sent a pow­er­ful mes­sage of dis­re­spect and dis­re­gard that their coun­try doesn't val­ue them ful­ly as hu­man be­ings."

Robin­son said Per­sad-Bisses­sar still had the op­por­tu­ni­ty be­fore leav­ing of­fice to put that com­mit­ment in­to law by amend­ing the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Act to pre­vent dis­crim­i­na­tion based on sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion.