Prime Minister Freundel Stuart told the Christian church today, it
cannot judge homosexuality until it can determine “with pontifical
certainty” if the lifestyle was based on perversion or on a person’s
physiological makeup.
“And the argument becomes even more troublesome, because it is not
within the competence of any of us in this room, to resolve the basic
issue related to homosexual behaviour,” the Prime Minister Stuart said
while addressing the opening of the Anglican Church Province of the West
Indies Provincial Congress 2013, at the University of the West Indies,
Cave Hill campus on the theme “Challenges Facing Caribbean Families —
the Church’s Response”.
“We do not know, whether it is based on nature, or whether it is
based on nurture. And until we can speak with pontifical certainty …
whether homosexual behaviour derived from nature or from nuture, it does
not lie within our competence to sit in seats of judgement and to
condemn those who pursue that practice,” he argued.
The Government leader advised that the church would therefore have to
wrestle with this issue and solve it like Jesus would have done.
“You are going to have to ask a question: What would Christ have
said, what would Christ have done? And in a case, not too, too
dissimilar, His response was, ‘he that is without sin, cast the first
stone’,” added the political leader of the ruling Democratic Labour
Party to some shouts of “Amen!”.
Stuart said though, he got the feeling that when this subject is
debated, it is done so in the context of the family to be formed by
“these consenting same sex partners”. “And we lose sight of the fact
that the people we are talking about, are themselves already members of
families. They are the sons and daughters of people like us and people
of whom we approve. And we can only guess at the challenge, the anguish
and the sense of angony, that many of our families go through, when one
of their members, male or female, declares, or manifests that kind of
orientation,” added the Prime Minister.
Stuart reasoned that a matter such as this seemed “all right when it
doesn’t touch us”. He recalled growing up in a village where people took
homosexuals for granted and laughed at them, but that he lived to see
some of those who mocked become affected by a relative who declared or
manifested homosexuality. “So we have to approach all of this, in a very
Christian way. It is not easy, but I have a sneaking suspicion, that
the Christian church, when all is said and done, is not going to want to
find itself on an end opposite to the recognition of human rights,” he
added.
Stuart quickly asserted that he was not suggesting the church compromise the principles on which it was built.
“Those principles,” Stuart continued, “are really not up for sale or
negotiation. But, as I said, until we can resolve the issue of nature
and nurture, until we can clearly put ourselves in a position where we
can say people who pursue that orientation, do it out of perverseness,
rather than out of the fact that their own physiological make up, makes
it very difficult for them to go in any other direction — until we can
resolve that, we have a challenge on our hands.”
Prime Minister Stuart however told the church it can win the argument
against homosexuality and same sex unions on moral and ethical grounds,
but not on a human rights basis. (EJ)
Source: http://www.barbadostoday.bb/2013/08/12/pm-dont-judge-yet/