Yvonne Ba­boolal

God still reigns supreme in T&T, ac­cord­ing to the Con­sti­tu­tion, and gay rights will not be a part of the Gov­ern­ment's draft na­tion­al pol­i­cy on gen­der and de­vel­op­ment.Min­is­ter of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment Mar­lene Coudray, fi­nal­ly break­ing her si­lence on the con­tro­ver­sy yes­ter­day, said gay rights were not a part of the gen­der pol­i­cy which is now be­fore Cab­i­net, nor were they like­ly to be.

Coudray was re­spond­ing to ques­tions on a sur­vey by the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Re­search Ser­vices Inc, which re­port­ed­ly showed the ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens were ei­ther tol­er­ant or ac­cept­ing of ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty and that it was not po­lit­i­cal­ly dan­ger­ous.Coudray, who was at an open house held by her min­istry at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, was asked whether gay rights would be in­clud­ed in the gen­der pol­i­cy.

"There is noth­ing in (it) that speaks to any gay rights. There were ru­mours all over the place that cer­tain things are in the draft that are not," she said."The draft pol­i­cy is be­fore Cab­i­net and those is­sues were not part of it, so they are not like­ly to come up to af­fect the pol­i­cy at all at this stage."Coudray said this de­ci­sion was not hers, but the unan­i­mous wish of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO), which rep­re­sents 25 dif­fer­ent re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions, and a large num­ber of oth­er faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions.

"It re­al­ly is not up to me," she said.The min­istry held two con­sul­ta­tions with the re­li­gious groups at Cap­i­tal Plaza on April 24 and May 3 and, ac­cord­ing to IRO head Pun­dit Har­ryper­sad Ma­haraj, they sent out a warn­ing in ad­vance to the Gov­ern­ment that it would not get sup­port for the le­gal­i­sa­tion of ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty.

Coudray said, "I con­vened a meet­ing with faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions and the IRO and its mem­bers and we had a very ex­ten­sive, open and frank dis­cus­sion with them."We had to ex­tend the dis­course to two days and we came to terms with what they would like to see (in the gen­der pol­i­cy). They re­mind­ed us the Con­sti­tu­tion is based on the su­prema­cy of God."So those views are doc­u­ment­ed to be put for­ward. Pro­pos­als were for­mu­lat­ed to be sent to the Fi­nance and Gen­er­al Pur­pos­es Com­mit­tee."

The F&GP is a sub­com­mit­tee of Cab­i­net.The min­is­ter said some word on the pol­i­cy would be com­ing soon. Asked if a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the gay com­mu­ni­ty had met with her, she said no one sought to meet with her as min­is­ter.Asked to com­ment on the sur­vey, Coudray replied, "We need to know the sam­ple size and all of that."

She said it took 30-plus years for the gen­der pol­i­cy to come in­to be­ing but it had nev­er be­fore reached the lev­el of Cab­i­net, which was some­thing to be com­mend­ed.She said the de­lay was due to an ef­fort to hear every­one's views.Ma­haraj, not­ing that re­li­gious groups rep­re­sent­ed a sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion, said the ar­gu­ment put for­ward was that gen­der, ac­cord­ing to re­li­gious be­liefs, con­sti­tut­ed male and fe­male, not ho­mo­sex­u­als or oth­er.

"We all unan­i­mous­ly agreed that from time im­memo­r­i­al hu­mans were cre­at­ed as male and fe­male, not ho­mo­sex­u­als and all these kinds of things."Ma­haraj said Leela Ramdeen, of the Catholic Com­mis­sion for So­cial Jus­tice, who was at the con­sul­ta­tion with the min­is­ter, re­ferred to the Rome Statute of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court which de­clared that the term gen­der re­ferred on­ly to the two sex­es of male and fe­male.

Ma­haraj said while there might be ob­jec­tions to the re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ty's po­si­tion, its mem­bers are hold­ing to it very firm­ly."We can't tell peo­ple how to live their lives but we are say­ing it must not be­come law­ful."If the Gov­ern­ment ever in­tends to le­galise same-sex mar­riages in T&T, we are send­ing out a warn­ing in ad­vance it will not get the sup­port of the re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ty."