The is­sue of les­bian and gay rights has been knock­ing on our door for some time now. To­day, the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty is bang­ing on the front door de­mand­ing at­ten­tion. A feel­ing of bliss­ful­ly se­cure, or in­deed silent­ly angst from with­in the pre­sumed safe­ty of our pre­vi­ous­ly se­cured places, will not pro­tect us from fac­ing an is­sue that is present every­where in our world.

The cir­cu­lat­ing ru­mour of books with in­for­ma­tion and vi­su­al de­pic­tions for our chil­dren to read of a sex­u­al­i­ty dif­fer­ent from the norm of what their par­ents and so­ci­ety as a whole have been ground­ed in, is mere­ly the wedge be­neath the door.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, in her stout re­pu­di­a­tion of the ru­mours of the books re­fer­ring to LGBTQ+ be­hav­iours be­ing on the min­istry’s book­list, had every right to cor­rect the record. As to the even­tu­al out­come of how this mat­ter is to be re­flect­ed and taught, or not, in schools, she re­al­ly has no say as the min­is­ter.

Whether this so­ci­ety in the ma­jor­i­ty agrees with or at­tempts to dis­cour­age this phe­nom­e­non of dif­fer­ing forms of sex­u­al­i­ty be­com­ing the norm, the re­al­i­ty is that it’s hap­pen­ing and will con­tin­ue to oc­cu­py our phys­i­cal and think­ing space.

Back in the 1970s, not­ed Chris­t­ian the­olo­gian, Dr Fran­cis Scha­ef­fer, as­sert­ed that we were liv­ing in a post-Chris­t­ian so­ci­ety of norms; that must sure­ly ap­ply to oth­er re­li­gions.

The is­sue of a dif­fer­ent form of sex­u­al­i­ty is not one that the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion will have to struc­ture in­to its cur­ricu­lum and book­list or not. The di­rec­tion for­ward must come from par­ents, in­sti­tu­tions of re­li­gion and moral­i­ty, with the in­evitable in­put from young peo­ple.

Every­one who watch­es Amer­i­can tele­vi­sion is con­front­ed with movies in which dif­fer­ing forms of sex­u­al­i­ty are por­trayed and the ac­com­pa­ny­ing ad­ver­tise­ments which re­flect the “new norm.” And while we list it as “new,” it is on­ly so in terms of be­ing up­front and re­al, but in fact it has ex­ist­ed in so­ci­eties all over the world from time im­memo­r­i­al.

Gay rights pa­rades have tak­en place for well over two decades in the ma­jor cities of the world. Over the last few years, they have been hap­pen­ing here in T&T with a mea­sure of as­sur­ance, their lead­ers march­ing in front of the cam­era and telling their sto­ries to re­porters.

At the same time though, LGBTQ+ per­sons are be­ing ex­e­cut­ed in cer­tain so­ci­eties.

It will be facile for a news­pa­per ed­i­to­r­i­al to take a de­fin­i­tive po­si­tion on whether the forms of sex­u­al­i­ty adopt­ed by the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty are those which should pre­dom­i­nate or not.

The chal­lenge now lies with par­ents, with re­li­gious lead­ers and their or­gan­i­sa­tions en­ter­ing frontal­ly in­to the dis­course to let their prin­ci­pled po­si­tions be known. So too par­ent-teacher groups, in­di­vid­ual par­ents and young peo­ple must ar­tic­u­late on this mat­ter of a dif­fer­ing set of sex­u­al be­liefs and lifestyles.

The laws, val­ues and norms, and pat­terns of be­hav­iours must be con­di­tioned and di­rect­ed by the prin­ci­ple of all the voic­es hav­ing a say in what is to be ac­cept­ed.

Re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions and their lead­ers have a spe­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to de­fend what they preach to their flocks. The way for­ward must be dis­tilled out of the wis­dom and de­sires of the voic­es raised.