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The Equal Opportunities Bill should never have even seen the inside of the Cabinet room

HighlightsThe Equal Opportunities Bill should never have even seen the inside of the Cabinet room

Today, Tuesday, September 15, 2020, Cabinet issued a press release to notify the public that it will not be tabling the Equal Opportunities Bill at the upcoming House meeting.

Said the release, in part: “… The bill seeks to promote equal opportunities and to address discrimination, stigma and violence by prohibiting certain forms of conduct and encouraging proactive steps to be taken to address unjust disparities and barriers in order to promote the core Belizean values of fairness, respect, and justice.

“The decision was taken to not proceed with the bill at this time and to withdraw it. Cabinet … views with deep regret the circumstances surrounding the bill being brought before the Cabinet for its approval, which is a mere part of the legislative process … It is regrettable that there was purposeful misinformation from some stakeholders.”

Continues the release: “… there was never intent to pass such legislation without the due process being afforded that would include proper consideration by members of Cabinet, proper ventilation in both Houses of Parliament; proper opportunities for stakeholders to voice their concerns and for such concerns to be addressed (primarily through presentations to the relevant House Committee (s).”

The government insists that there are very good elements of the bill that would bring about tremendous benefits for the Belizean people, “especially as it relates to issues having to do with but not limited to our aging population, breastfeeding, persons with disabilities, family responsibilities, gender, HIV positive status, maternity, political opinion, industrial activity, irrelevant criminal record, lawful sexual activity, political opinion, pregnancy, race, religious activity, sex, sexual orientation, status as a person who is experiencing or has experienced domestic violence, status as an orphan and a few other statuses.”

“The Cabinet … continues to view with urgency the need to protect those who are discriminated against, harassed and victimized in any way and pledges to continue seeking ways to achieve such objectives,” the release further said.

Putting this in context, it is well known that the Equal Opportunities Bill (EOB) is being spearheaded by the wife of Prime Minister Dean Barrow, Mrs. Kim Simplis Barrow, under the covering of her post of Special Envoy for Women and Children, with financing and input from The Human Dignity Trust, a U.K. organization, which has been actively pushing the LGBT agenda in various countries.

Under her protection, a network of LGBT organizations, sustained by foreign funding and driven by a foreign gender ideology, have been flourishing here. With her help, they have been able to expand their influence in nearly all branches of the government, including the judicial system. The educational system has been a primary target in their drive to spread the doctrine of sexual liberation and experimentation that trashes traditional morals in the eyes and minds of the youth of Belize.

Educational insiders say that the curriculum of the schools has been heavily compromised by the gender ideology that Mrs. Barrow has been pushing and that many parents are unaware of the extent to which their children are currently being indoctrinated. Groups standing in opposition are calling this a new form of foreign colonization that targets the young and the vulnerable.

The government’s press release obfuscates, largely ignoring the numerous issues that those who oppose the bill have raised. Legal critics point out that the bill is so far-reaching and totalitarian in nature — superseding all our other laws except the Constitution, whilst ceding sovereignty in prescribed areas to various UN organizations — that only the very broadest national consensus of support from a well-informed public could possibly justify its advancement. The few consultations that have been held fall far short of such requirements, and the reality is that the framers of the bill have given no indication that they are willing to compromise with those who have pointed out the harmful elements it contains.

As it now stands, the bill is a battering ram that provides cover for the undermining of parental rights, attacks on freedom and the silencing of persons of conscience, and the overturning of jurisprudential norms that have hitherto guaranteed the right of individuals to be deemed innocent until proven guilty and to be afforded proper legal representation. It provides for the creation of a tribunal, a kind of Star Chamber comprised of a single judge with far-reaching powers to deal out fines and jail time in order to force individuals and businesses into a straightjacket designed by UNIBAM and its fellow travelers.

References to an “aging population, breastfeeding, persons with disabilities … [those who are] HIV- positive, [those who] have experienced domestic violence,” and so on and so forth, are seen as a thin smokescreen providing cover for Mrs. Barrow’s radical agenda that would hollow out our constitutional freedoms in order to pave the way for her social reengineering goals to be achieved.

In its present form, the Equal Opportunities Bill is a potential bomb that if detonated, would cause Belize to be severed from its past traditions and culture and would be destructive of the moral fiber of the nation’s young, upon which its future rests.

This may or may not be what Mrs. Barrow is actually desiring, but everything that has been said and done to date is evidence of an overarching ambition to remake Belize according to the desires of a few.

The strategy has been a “tried and true” one of tacking an unsavory agenda unto other causes that may be worthwhile and then marketing the package to those who do not have the time to lift the lid and open the can of worms. This will produce a harmful outcome if all parties involved do not now come together for real dialogue in good faith to decide on a course of action that preserves Belize’s patrimony and defends the freedom of its citizens.

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