Belize LGBT Activists Mount Historic Challenge to Anti-Gay Laws

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
December 1, 2011

A November 16, 2011 Guardian newspaper report announced a new challenge in Belize to its anti-gay laws. The legal suit is the first contest by a new human rights organization that intends to overturn all post-UK former colonies that have laws criminalizing homosexuality. "The Human Dignity Trust (HDT), which launched its campaign in London on Thursday, is targeting the 80-odd states where consensual sexual activity between adults of the same gender is outlawed. More than half are Commonwealth countries which inherited their regulations from British colonial rule. In some like Uganda, Kenya, Cameroon and Ghana the laws are seen by some as justification for violent attacks on gay and lesbian people."

(photo right: for tourists Belize is a paradise; for gays it is less than that.)

Not surprising, Belize's Anglican, evangelical, and Catholic 'spiritual leaders' have united to oppose the effort. They will announce their objections in a court hearing this week. As if to add injury to insult they insist they have evidence that homosexuality can be 'cured'--against all scientific studies to the contrary. It will be a contest between intelligent modern thinking and archaic religious bigotry.

It is endlessly frustrating to read the same old, absurd and morally-twisted arguments of such people as Belize Catholic bishop Dorick Wright, Anglican bishop Philip Wright and Evangelical Rev Eugene Crawford in Belize City. These supposed 'good Christians' are quoted as saying, "the people of Belize will not surrender our constitution, our moral foundations, and our way of life to predatory foreign interests."

Indeed! These are the very ones who are devoid of moral foundation in their modern use of ancient books of ambivalent religious mystery that have no factual source or verifiable accuracy; they justify their bigotry purely on prejudicial misinterpretations and mistranslations of alleged scriptures that were in fact 'invented' by highly fallible writers (with no acknowledgement of dissenting views) and politically imposed upon an ancient nomadic populace who could not read or write, hence violating their native animist belief system. (photo left: courthouse in Belize City)

It is a pathetic miscarriage of Christian justice to use such fragmented, unreliable, multiply-translated, man-made, opinionated and selected bits of 'scripture' as a basis for a guide to daily life nearly two thousand years later. These old texts are about as accurate and truthful for today's science-based life as using ancient Egyptian pharonic scribblings on medical procedures as a guide for surgery today. Would anyone in their right mind allow a physician schooled in these antique lessons to perform life-saving procedures to heal injuries or disease?! For the same reasoning, how do modern religious believers follow equally archaic words?

It takes a huge leap of blind foolishness to state in a modern public forum such prejudicial ignorant opinions against scientifically verified aspects regarding human sexuality. Homosexual behavior is an inherent variety of human nature that has existed in every society that's ever emerged on the planet. There is no sound verification of homosexuality being 'imported' or forced on a people from alien sources.
(photo right: activist Caleb Oroczo, head of UniBam--leading the court suit against the government)

Modern 'thinkers' who claim spiritual leadership would do well to go back to deeper research and investigation into their alleged sources in culture and language. There, if they have the intellectual open-mindedness, will they not find any specific reference or rule regarding the sexual nature of human beings, other than some comments on marriage. Modern religious bigotry against homosexuality has no true scriptural standing. Prejudice is just that--opinion without truth.

And speaking of "predatory foreign interests", it was the Christian armies, missionaries and inquisition that targeted violence against peoples of other territories, tribes and cultures in the mad crusade of 'saving the heathen' from their native beliefs and worship rituals, which had served them well enough for thousands of years.

Shame, shame on Catholic bishop Dorick Wright, the Anglican bishop Philip Wright and the evangelical Rev Eugene Crawford. Let's hope their irrational hateful beliefs are crushed under the truth and science of modern enlightened thinking.

In front of the Anglican cathedral in Belize City there is a 'peace post' with the inscription: May peace prevail on Earth. Let's hope this bit of hypocrisy reverses to become a reality. (photo left)

Read more about LGBT life in Belize here.