The Tribune

ONE WONDERS what part of equality some of these preachers do not understand.

On June 7, Bahamians will for the second time go to the polls to decide whether Bahamian women are to have equal status with their menfolk in this country. The first referendum was defeated by PLP politicking in 2002. Now Bahamians have a chance to right that wrong, but unfortunately many of them are still talking foolishness and trying to maintain the status quo.

Many of these men of the cloth do not seem to understand the hardships they place on Bahamian women who decide to marry non-Bahamians, nor on the children of the marriage. They do not understand that by keeping women in an unequal category to their male counterparts, they are putting them in a position for their lives to be made a living hell, not only by ruthless politicians, but by officious civil servants.

Sean McWeeny, chairman of the Constitutional Commission, should grasp the position although he was fortunate enough not to experience the hardships because he was always on the right side of the so-called political divide. He never had to suffer “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”, because, although he had an American father and a Bahamian mother, they were all secure in the PLP tent. Those on the outside were not as fortunate.

However, in October 1986, Mr McWeeney fully grasped the inequity when in a speech, which was loudly applauded, he made his position clear.

“Persons who immigrated to this country as little children, and who have lived and worked all their days in this land, and who have married the sons and daughters of our soil, and raised Bahamian families should by the laws of human decency be embraced into the national bosom as citizens of the Commonwealth,” he told those attending the PLP’s 31st annual convention.

For him, he said, it was a matter of deeply held conviction. “But,” he said, “I go further, because I long for the day when we will at last extend to foreign spouses of Bahamian women the same preferential consideration for Bahamian citizenship that we have long extended to foreign spouses of Bahamian men.”

He pointed out that “there are Bahamian women out there who quite frankly don’t sleep well at night because their husbands of long standing in this country don’t know if come the next day they’re going to be told to pack up and clear out,” he said. “There are Bahamian children out there who are worried stiff because their fathers or mothers with 15 or 20 years standing in this country may get the boot.”

Can that ever be right? he asked. Can that ever be fair?

The answer is a resounding “No.” But apparently there are many Bahamians who can see no wrong. The most shocking feature about this is that there are many religious ministers who can be counted among them.

Not only were the politicians heavy handed in bullying tactics against those who opposed them, but also were the civil servants.

In December 2001, then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham admitted that within the Ministry of Immigration the dreams of citizenship for many foreign-born spouses and their Bahamian wives were turned into “nightmares.”

It was during a debate in 2001 to amend the constitution that several former immigration ministers admitted that unfairness and bureaucracy existed in the department in the processing of citizenship allocations.

Mr Ingraham said that in the hands of civil servants some applications were never put to the immigration board because a bureaucrat determined that the individual did not qualify, or would not be favourably considered.

Some applications were reviewed by counsel in the attorney general’s office who declared an applicant ineligible under the law hence there was no need to consider the application.

Mr Ingraham said efforts to secure citizenship on behalf of foreign born minor children of Bahamian married women frequently fell victim to several scenarios.

Bureaucrats would not accept applications for children under the age of 18 because, according to strict interpretations of the constitution, they were not entitled to be considered.

Mr Ingraham cited the case of a senior civil servant who was advised that she ought to consider adopting her own child or, alternatively, declaring the child not of her marriage. One must remember that illegitimate children of a Bahamian mother had more citizenship rights than a child of a Bahamian mother with a foreign-born husband.

In this particular case the daughter was born in a country in which neither parent held nationality at the time of her birth.

Mr Ingraham said her application to be registered as a Bahamian citizen at that time awaited determination as to the appropriate article under the constitution under which it would be considered, notwithstanding the fact that the application was made on the individual’s behalf by her Bahamian mother long before she reached the age of 21.

“That application,” he said, “was intentionally or otherwise, not acted upon by the government. The file of this young woman, and a number of other young adult children of Bahamian married women born outside the Bahamas, continue to receive conflicting legal advice as to whether those applications ought , or might be considered under various articles of the Bahamian constitution.

“In the meantime, the lives of these young Bahamians remain in the balance,” he said.

Mr Ingraham tried to rectify much of this in his third term, but the only way to achieve true equality is to apply one set of rules to both sexes.

It is hard to see why this is so difficult for so many Bahamians — especially ministers of the gospel — to grasp the unfairness of this inhumane situation.

And to condemn the June 7 referendum for fear of introducing homosexuality is just a red herring. However, considering the axis on which this morally-uncontrolled world is now spinning, homosexuality promises to be another issue for another time. However, it has nothing to do with these four Bills. To make it an issue is just an excuse for those who do not agree that men and women should be equal under our constitution.