Government will not pander to developed world on gay rights – Dr. Luncheon

Government is unlikely to tamper with legislation to address what advocacy groups say is discrimination against homosexual lifestyles, aspects of which are in contravention of the law, such as homosexual sexual activity and cross dressing.
For these issues to be addressed, Government must be convinced that this is the desire of the people of Guyana and not an agenda being foisted on the society by the developed world, said Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon.

At his weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at the Office of the President yesterday, the HPS was asked about the state of affairs regarding the Constitution (Amendment) Bill No. 10 of 2003 which lost its place on the Parliamentary Order Paper when the Eighth Parliament ended in 2006. The intent of the Bill was to amend Article 149 of the Constitution by removing two paragraphs and substituting them for two others.
Dr. Luncheon stated that Guyana has laws that are anti-discriminatory.
“So I don’t believe the question to the administration was to end discrimination. We don’t have any laws that support discrimination. What I sense that has been evolving is [the foisting on] Guyanese culture what the western world feels, and would like to have established elsewhere, as enlightenment and for their cultural norms to supersede ours in a very uncritical way that ignores how robust our culture and specifically ways and means of influencing nationally its evolution,” he said.
According to Dr. Luncheon, he does not believe that he would be telling ‘tales out of school’ that the reason why capital punishment continues to be an issue of the UPR and other human rights forum is specifically because a sizeable grouping of countries have adopted legislation, sometimes constitutional, against capital punishment.
“And they’re messianic; they want to bring this enlightenment to the world. And for generations, they sit and they plot and they plan to subvert national will and national cultural norms, and this is no different for alternate lifestyles. One reflective difference that you will find in countries that are very serious about preserving their culture and take strong and vigilant efforts to so do is a rejection of cultural imperialism and the subversion of national norms,” Dr. Luncheon said.
“You will find that the administration will be most attentive to what Guyanese want, stakeholders, the Guyanese community, here and in the Diaspora. At the end of the day it will be a Guyanese driven agenda,” he said.
But he noted that having acceded to international rights instruments, “We are duty bound as honourable members of the international community to adhere to its provisions and here I would say without reservation that laws which support and allow discrimination are not part of the national legislation in Guyana. For us, that was not an issue at the level of the Universal Periodic Review,” he said.

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