A GROUP of religious leaders is calling on candidates to declare their stance on pornography, gay marriage and several other "moral and national" issues ahead of the May 7 general election.
The Bahamas Coalition of Evangelical Pastors emailed a questionnaire to all 133 candidates yesterday, challenging them to let voters know their views on series of subjects "rarely talked about" during elections.
The coalition first issued the questionnaire in the run-up to the 2007 general election.
"We received feedback from many individuals who were grateful to learn where their prospective members of parliament stood on these issues, as well as the political parties. Hence, we are undertaking this initiative again for the 2012 general elections," Pastors Lyall Bethel and Cedric Moss said in a statement.
Candidate responses can be followed on http://thequestions.3eeweb.com, which divides the data by constituency as well as by party, so voters can easily compare the choices before them.
Elections 2012 questions of moral and national importance
Preservation of marriage
Do you believe that marriage is defined as being exclusively between one man and one woman?
Are you in favour of granting same sex couples some form of legal recognition or status under law (civil unions, et cetera)?
Are you opposed to recognising in the Bahamas, "same sex marriages/ unions" performed outside of the Bahamas?
Human sexuality
Do you support changing the age of sexual consent to 18?
Do you believe that human sexual conduct expressed exclusively within the boundaries of marriage between one man and one woman is in our national best interests?
Do you believe that governments and government agencies should help to promote strong families, not undermine them?
Are you in favour of pro-choice abortion laws (ie, the right of women to choose to abort unborn children)?
Do you oppose the production, broadcast, sale, and dissemination of pornography and will support legislation to prohibit the same in the Bahamas?
Do you support strengthening and strictly enforcing public decency laws to address activities like topless/ nude sunbathing on public beaches, strip clubs, and public profanity?
Do you support immoral tourism (ie, encouraging and inviting to our shores "organised immoral groups," like homosexuals, swingers, those who swap marriage partners, nudists, et cetera, who come publicly under the umbrella of promoting their cause)?
Gambling
Do you support legalising privately owned gambling businesses (numbers houses, web shops, et cetera)?
Are you in favour of establishing a National Lottery?
Are you in favour of amending the laws to allow Bahamian citizens and residents to legally gamble in local casinos?
Constitutional Matters
Are you in favour of retaining in our Constitution's preamble the words that underscore our nation's commitment to an abiding respect for Christian values?
Would you support a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman?
Are you in favour of capital punishment?
Are you in favour of amending the Constitution of the Bahamas to make it absolutely clear that capital punishment is the mandatory sentence for murder, bearing in mind that a jury would arrive at a murder conviction only after giving consideration to circumstances that might point to manslaughter?
Are you in favour of amending the Constitution to allow all Bahamian citizens (men and women) to be able to equally pass on citizenship to their children?
Are you in favour of leaving as is the provision in the Constitution that allows children born in the Bahamas to have the right to apply for citizenship when they turn 18 years old?
Do you believe that all children born in the Bahamas should have an automatic right to citizenship?
Miscellaneous Matters
If elected, will you support legislation to bring about campaign finance reform?
Are you in favour of using a Judeo-Christian value system in our public schools?
On a matter of conscience, are you willing to vote against your party if you are in a party at the time?
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