The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE ‘YES Bahamas’ campaign said yesterday that Pastor Cedric Moss has shown a “wilful determination to ignore facts in favour of inventing conspiracy theories” when it comes to the constitutional referendum on gender equality.

The statement came after a letter from Pastor Moss was published in The Tribune last week in which he argued that the upcoming referendum is “about politics”, with the third bill intended to be a distraction from the fourth bill.

Bill three would let unmarried Bahamian men pass citizenship onto their children while bill four would prohibit discrimination against a person based on their status as a male or female.

Mr Moss said the third bill would let Bahamian men who “commit adultery with foreign women and father children for them anywhere in the world be able to pass citizenship to those children”.

Responding yesterday, the YES Bahamas campaign said though the behaviour of such men “appears to offend Mr Moss”, people should consider their children “whose lives are affected from the moment of birth for reasons beyond their control.

“These children deserve to belong fully to their families and to our nation, to share in both the rights and responsibilities of Bahamian citizenship,” the group said. 

As for Pastor Moss’ contention that the third bill would not have retroactive implications if passed, the YES Bahamas campaign noted that the government has said it would produce measures to “ensure children born to an unmarried Bahamian father can be regularised through the Department of Immigration”.

Ultimately, the group said the Constitution must change so changes can be secured and not subject to the “whims of successive governments”.

“Any government can pass laws that, for example, outlaw allowing one race a privilege denied to another race,” the group said.

“But we all believe that this kind of choice should not be left to governments, that a nation’s founding document ought to reflect its values, and guarantee certain rights to all citizens,

under all governments to

come.”