LaTonya Linton, Gleaner Writer
Yvonne Coke (right), founder and director of Hands Across Jamaica for Righteousness, in conversation with an animated Shirley Richards, attorney-at-law and president of the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, during a press conference yesterday to discuss the Charter of Rights Bill currently being debated in Parliament, at Family Life Ministries in St. Andrew. - RUDOLPH BROWN/CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
A GROUP of Christian attorneys and church leaders is fearful that proposed amendments to the Jamaican Constitution could, potentially, ban devotions in schools as well as permit homosexual marriage.
Accordingly, the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship has written to the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General A.J. Nicholson, requesting that their concerns be heard by the Joint Select Committee of Parliament that is reviewing the Charter of Rights Bill.
This piece of legislation seeks to provide members of the public with a list of fundamental rights and privileges that will be enshrined in or deeply protected by the Constitution.
But committee chairman, Senator Nicholson, is unwilling to prolong the sitting of the committee, complaining that the Charter of Rights measure has been debated on and off for 25 years and it was now time to conclude the matter.
"If it comes back to us, I can tell you I won't be the chairman," said an annoyed Senator Nicholson during last week's meeting of the committee.
The concerned church leaders and the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship are insisting that their concerns be heard, and have outlined a plan of action:
Prayer by the Christian community about the issue.
Christians are encouraged to sit in the public gallery at Gordon House during the Charter of Rights committee meeting on Thursday afternoon.
Christians and pastors are being encouraged to write to their various Members of Parliament expressing their concerns over the proposed constitutional amendments.
"The rights pertaining to freedom of conscience, which is currently granted under Section 21 of the current Constitution, have not been fully repeated in the charter," noted Shirley Richards, president of Lawyers' Christian Fellowship.
She added that Sub-section Four of the Constitution currently allows a religious body to provide religious instruction to, for example, students in the course of any education, even though that body may be recipient of financial assistance from Government funds.
"We have searched the Charter of Rights desperately to find the explicit inclusion of this provision but we have not found it," said Mrs Richards. "It, therefore, means that if this Charter of Rights is passed, we can say goodbye to devotions in schools, to Christmas plays and carol services and to any type of religious instructions to students."
The religious groups are also concerned about the inclusion of a privacy clause in Section 13, Subsection 3 of the Charter of Rights, with the words 'respect for private and family life, privacy of the home'.
"Our concern," said Richards, "is that these words, as innocuously sounding as they are, can be interpreted to allow for adult consensual homosexual conduct in private," said Richards. She added that once homosexual acts are decriminalised, there would be no basis to bar to gay marriage. Mrs. Richards added that the concept of privacy also deals with abortion rights.
"If the government wants to decriminalise either homosexuality or abortion then it must do so squarely. Don't tell us that this will never happen under your watch and then allow for a few choice words in the charter which you know are capable of having this meaning," said Mrs. Richards.
Charter of Rights fears
Pastors could be exposed to personal risk and liability for preaching the Gospel.
The preaching of the Gospel could be described as hate speech.
Homosexuality could be made legal without the buggery law being repealed by Parliament.
Judges could be forced to make homosexual marriage legal.
The new Charter of Rights will allow the judiciary to take activists' positions and create policy without public accountability.
Could create conditions under which the preaching of the Gospel could be severely curtailed.
