The path is now clear for Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to “very easily” go back to Parliament and amend the Equal Opportunity Act to protect people from discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation. So said attorney Douglas Mendes, SC, as he addressed the media following the launch of the results of a poll done by UNAids. The launch took place on Wednesday afternoon at the UN House, Chancery Lane, Port-of-Spain.
Last month, while in New York, Persad-Bissessar said T&T was nowhere near ready to establish a referendum dealing with the decriminalisation of homosexuality and gay rights as it was not legally possible. She said tremendous opposition was faced, especially from the Roman Catholic Church, but the issue of gay rights was not really for the Government to decide. Mendes said the issue was about the protection of gay people against discrimination.
Merle Ali, founding member of the Network of Faith-based Organisations, said while there were concerns about religious bodies being forced to marry gay citizens, the organisation stood against discrimination against all people, for any reason. The poll, which revealed public opinion on three specific issues, sexual health education in schools, Aids discrimination and homosexuality, was done in 2013. It showed the majority of T&T’s citizens believe discrimination against homosexuals is unacceptable. When asked if people should be treated differently on the basis of their sexual orientation, 78 per cent of respondents said no, while 13 per cent were unsure and nine per cent did not answer. Asked whether they believed violence against gays or sexual minorities could be considered discrimination, 64 per cent of respondents said yes.
Mendes, who was part of a panel responding to the poll results, said the information was as close as one could get to a consensus. “The path has been cleared very easily for legislators to go back to Parliament to amend the Equal Opportunity Act, where you would need a simple majority,” Mendes said. He said amending the act would send a clear message to the population, the region and the international community that T&T did not discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation. The research was done by Caribbean Development Research Services (Cadres). It used a stratified random sample of T&T and analysed data from 1,176 questionnaires from interviews done in October 2013.