32.8 C
Belize City
Thursday, March 28, 2024

World Down Syndrome Day

Photo: Students and staff of Stella Maris...

BPD awards 3 officers with Women Police of the Year

Photo: (l-r) Myrna Pena, Carmella Cacho, and...

Suicide on the rise!

Photo: Iveth Quintanilla, Mental Health Coordinator by Charles...

We want a referendum on the anti-freedom “Equal Opportunities Bill”

LettersWe want a referendum on the anti-freedom “Equal Opportunities Bill”

No government should think they have the right to ram this bill home on the basis of a majority in the House of Representatives.

Dear Editor,

The government wants to pass a piece of legislation called the “Equal Opportunities Bill”, which is supposed to eliminate discrimination in Belize. Based on what it contains, I think a better name would be the “Anti-Freedom Bill,” because I foresee people of conscience being brought to penury and some even being sent to jail.

At the Thursday night consultations held in Belize City last week, the CEO of the Ministry of Human Development said, “Nobody should be discriminated against, and the government has a duty to ensure that this is so”.

This sounds good, but let us look at what the word “discriminate” means in the Merriam Webster Dictionary. The first definition of the word indicates that to discriminate is “to unfairly treat a person or group of people differently from other people or groups”. The second meaning of the word is to notice and understand that one thing is different from another thing; to recognize a difference between things. There is therefore a need for clarity whenever the word “discriminate” is used.

I believe Belizeans are in one accord that there should be no discrimination on the basis of race. We would not compromise on this. The second meaning of discriminate is to notice and understand and recognize a difference between things. On that basis, every single one of us is required to use our capacity to discriminate in our daily activities. As long as there are standards, we are required to discriminate between what is good and what is not good, between what is acceptable and what is not, between what is true and what is false.

Moreover, when we say that something is true, it should correspond to reality. This is not rocket science, but with the web of deceptive propaganda financed from the unlimited pockets of foreign organizations such as the Human Dignity Trust, Oak Foundation and others of that ilk, we are in danger of forgetting this basic principle.

In recent years, the Chief Justice, rejecting the foundational guidance of the preamble to our Constitution in favour of the zeitgeist flowing out of Europe and North America, declared out of thin air that the reference to sex in Section 3 of the Constitution means sexual orientation.

Sexual orientation refers to how a person feels, which is known to be something that can shift from time to time, whereas sex refers to the physical reality of how we are made. One is all about feelings, while the other is the hard cold fact of our biological make-up.

The Appeals Court also ignored the preamble to the Constitution and upheld his decision. This is craziness. This needs to be appealed to a higher court. If that fails, then the matter needs to be put to the people of Belize in a referendum.

The proposed law incorporates and builds on this falsehood, creating a Damocles sword that will hang over all of our heads. It will supersede ALL our other laws except for the Constitution. At 75 pages long, lots of things have been thrown into this bill in a strategy to shift our focus from its real intention, which is to change our standards of acceptable public behavior across the board and bring it into alignment with what UNIBAM requires.

Does this government really think we will not see past the smokescreen of references to the difficulties faced by breast-feeding women, pregnant school girls and Rastafarian boys who want to wear dreadlocks at school? I assure you there are far better ways of dealing with such things; ways that do not include the establishment of a super powerful and intrusive Commission and Tribunal to fast-track punishment through fines and jail time, as the case may be.

One of Smokey Joe’s favourite sayings was, “Money talks and BS walks”. We have people in Belize who have sold their souls for money and power. If you put something that is black in front of them, they will say it is white if their money master tells them this should be done.

I don’t believe in skirting around the real issues. There are men who declare that they should be treated as if they are women, notwithstanding their XY chromosomes, their muscles and what lies between their legs.

There are women who declare that they are men. They are deluded. Fine. But now they want to use the iron fist of the law to force me to join their delusion. In my opinion, a person would willingly bow down and obey this only if they do not consider truth to be important.

Some on the other side of this issue may respond that there is no such thing as truth, that it is relative, and that they do not accept what I consider to be the truth. If so, then we have a real problem that only the people of Belize can and should resolve in a direct vote. The real crime will be if we are not allowed to vote on this issue.

I believe compassion should be shown to those who are struggling with the disorder of same-sex attraction and gender dysphoria. They should not be cursed and insulted, but treated with the love and dignity that is due our fellow human beings.

They, on the other hand, must respect the norms of our society. It seems they do not want to respect these norms. Instead, they want them to be changed. I do not.

Furthermore, I do not believe our compassion can be justifiably extended to the gross overreach of the anti-freedom Equal Opportunities Bill. No government should think they have the right to ram this home on the basis of a majority in the House of Representatives. This is a game changer that should be submitted only to the people of Belize.

I love my country. One of the things I most treasure about it is the freedom to say what I want even if it is not popular in elite circles, and to follow my conscience as I go about the business of helping to guide the next generation and living in a democracy.

This bill would put an end to that by biting a huge chunk out of those freedoms. Can it be that the intention is to make it intolerable for God-fearing people and for those who object to the cognitive dissonance of being required to speak and act in ways that conflict with what their minds know to be true, to live here?

People need to know that similar legislation has been passed elsewhere and the result has been persecution of those who are guilty only of standing up for traditional morality. Some have lost their livelihoods and others have been put in jail. Many cases can be cited. Children as young as those in kindergarten are being subjected to teachings about homosexuality and transgenderism in some cities abroad.

I consider this to be child abuse.

You may wonder how we’ve reached this juncture of having such a threat hanging over our heads. We are where we are because of well-financed propaganda campaigns to influence those who are either not practiced in discerning truth from falsehood, or who are in the habit of allowing their emotions to rule them.

Some are intelligent people, but when it comes to their sexual proclivities or those of their family and friends, they think with their tender emotions rather than with the logic of the mind. We are also here because money talks.

I am praying for my country. I hope we get this right and stop before falling off the edge of the precipice. Our children deserve our protection. Many of us grew up in a different era, when we weren’t exposed to Hollywood values morning, noon and night, and we were the better for it.

We don’t need our children and grandchildren to be schooled in the details of homosexual practices and the confusion of transgenderism.

We don’t need the abnormal, the twisted and the perverse to be held up as the new “in thing”, the new fashion as we see happening elsewhere.

Our teachers are already being taught this new “woke” ideology at UB. I am told we already have serious problems in some of our high schools with this because of the frequency with which some other actor or singer is coming out of the closet to media fanfare and celebration.

The children are being influenced by people who should be pitied, but who instead are lauded by Madison Avenue. Those of us who know better need to do all we can to stop this tide before we are swept away. We are motivated by love for people and for the truth, which is based on science, morality and our Belizean culture.

Real love, as defined in 1 Corinthians 13, does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. I’m therefore saying this to politicians of every hue: enough is enough. Respect the people of Belize and give us the right to choose in this important matter. We want a referendum.
I write this as a sincere, God-fearing, Belizean patriot.

Christine Vellos

Check out our other content

World Down Syndrome Day

Suicide on the rise!

Check out other tags:

International