The Tribune

IS the time right to have a conversation about civil unions for gay couples and the legalisation of abortion?

That’s the question raised by Pineridge MP Frederick McAlpine.

Mr McAlpine, who is also a pastor, has often been at odds with his party, the FNM, in recent times, and perhaps his party won’t thank him again for suggesting the debate – but perhaps that is also what makes it easier for him to raise the subject.

He was speaking to The Tribune yesterday in the wake of the announcement of a gay pride parade next year – and he was one of few politicians who was willing to discuss the subject.

“I think the time is coming when you’re going to have to look at something called civil unions,” he said. His explanation for his reasons why may have been a little convoluted – boiling down to inheritance rights going to a same sex partner rather than a family member who disowned that person due to their sexuality – but it begins to get into some of the problems that people in such relationships experience. A legal paperwork setting out the wishes of people with regard to how the law and the land deals with their relationship with the person they love is something that is missing for same sex partnerships – so is it time to have that discussion?

Mr McAlpine also pointed out the illegality of abortion – yet “everybody knows people do get abortions. So when are we going to stop playing this game?”

It’s an important question at a time when the government has been busily saying the law is the law when it comes to matters regarding shanty towns – and yet here is a law that is widely ignored.

Many may say that the country is not ready for such a discussion on these issues – but which country has been ready for that discussion when it has first been raised?

A discussion, after all, involves more than one view, and raising the issue allows us to examine where we are, what we want, and what we think is fair. There will be parties on both sides who will be offended by some of the things being discussed and those who will be offended if these things are not discussed.

It is wrong to say the world is changing – unless we recognise the world has always been changing. The values we have now are not values of 20 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago or more. We trumpet being a Christian nation today but turn a blind eye to sweethearting, for example.

So let’s talk. Let’s see what we think is fair, as a nation. And let’s start that conversation today.

We’d like to thank Mr McAlpine for opening the debate - it’s time we had it.

Shutting out the press

Reporters trying to speak to Cabinet members yesterday to get answers on issues facing the nation were greeted with a new policy.

According to a member of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, reporters must now stand about 30 feet from the entrance of Cabinet to conduct interviews.

There was no announcement beforehand, and no explanation for why reporters are suddenly being prevented from speaking more easily to members of the Cabinet.

We hope this is a mistake, perhaps on the part of an over-eager official – but it is a bad look for a government that has already failed to deliver on its promise of quarterly briefings by Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis, and whose briefings are now as hard to find as Anthony Newbold, the press secretary once charged with conducting them.

If it is a deliberate policy, it is another step removing the government from being answerable to the people – and a government that takes such steps invariably finds the public has its own answer for such behaviour at the ballot box.

We sincerely suggest that a quiet word is had with whoever instituted such a policy – and that it is removed right away.

If the government won’t answer questions, they may just find the voters will arrive at their own answers, just as the PLP found when they were booted out in 2017.