Sean Major-Campbell | God and that savings law clause

THE GLEANER on Friday, October 27, 2023, noted, “The Supreme Court has ruled that the constitutionality of three sections of the Offences Against the Person Act ‘cannot be enquired into’ because of the Constitution’s savings law clause.”

Savings law clauses were supposed to serve for periods of transition. Instead, we have come to inherit an approach where such a clause is a burden from empire. The savings law clause is essentially protecting laws given by empire. That same empire that used laws to strengthen and support the genocide and holocaust of slavery. That same empire that stole lands and displaced first nations and ensured racism and other evils of white supremacy as prevail today.

It is easy to get carried away with the so-called “buggery law” issue, important though it is. However, Jamaicans will need to wake up and realise that only constitutional reform will ensure that we are freed from such vestiges of empire which the agents of empire themselves no longer hold. Imagine the USA or England or Israel subjecting their jurisprudence to the limitations of a savings law clause.

ADVANCES IN HUMAN RIGHTS CONVERSATIONS

Why should the architects of a colonial past continue to hold power over the capacity of our legal system? Why should our legal system be stifled when in 2023 there are advances in human rights conversations and protections? Why should the savings law clause be kept when it flies in the face of liberty and human dignity? Are our legal minds incapable of doing judicial review of pre-independence laws? No self-respecting Caribbean judge should have to preside over a case, under the shadow of a savings law clause. But our Constitution carries this shackle as if to remind us of our history of enslavement.

Our task at hand is to choose between protecting colonial laws and punishments or protecting constitutional guarantees concerning peoples’ fundamental rights and freedoms. We need our Jamaican court to be truly an independent adjudicator for Jamaican citizens.

CaribbeanNewsService.com notes under Jamaica Farewell by Maurice Tomlinson, “Ironically, while there are multiple reports of Jamaican churchmen raping and pilfering their congregants, still the biggest national threat most Jamaicans perceive is what consenting adults do with their private parts. So much so that our Parliament sought to entrench the ban on same-sex intimacy in our constitution. Ridiculous.”

We must ask ourselves as people of religious faith, whether it is true that God is worried more about consenting adults and same-gender intimacy than concerned about agents of the church grooming, molesting, and raping children? And while we are at it, we must explore the broader truths about human sexuality. We need a culture in which it is okay for people to have open conversations about the dynamics of gender and human sexuality. We should be encouraging individuals to talk with self. Yes, self. Acknowledge with self what your fantasies, fetishes, etcetera may be. If for example, the leaning is towards pedophilia, then you must move to the next level of conversation (which may require professional help) with self on how not to act upon such inclinations. Why you should not do so is also very important!

There are very important and necessary reasons why, for example, we ought not to have sexual activity, every time we feel sexually aroused. We should also not seek to sexualise every relationship in which we feel some sexual attraction. The first thing to do, however, is to acknowledge the feeling, the urge, the temptation. Then you draw on reason informed by a value system that protects the interest and wellbeing of all concerned.

STOP BLAMING THE DEVIL

The devil does not make people do things. Stop blaming the devil. It is people who must take steps to do what is right. It is people who ought to exercise human rights.

God does not make savings law clauses. It is people who make laws. In fact, there are laws that were supposedly given by God, that many people would not observe today. Not even the Holiness Code in the Book of Leviticus is considered binding anymore. Maybe that is why many descendants of the Hebrews, do not observe various sections of this anymore.

In Leviticus 19:27 ancient Israel would have been expected to keenly observe, “Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.” I breathed a sigh of relief when I started shaving and then discovered that much of those observances have absolutely nothing to do with Christ consciousness.

Many Caribbean folks are so law-centred in terms of religion, that even some who no longer do religion, still live under the negative impact of punitive approaches and outdated observances. It is these observances which have blinded some re any capacity to understand that so-called buggery laws make no sense. They can hardly be properly prosecuted. They currently serve the purpose of ensuring stigma, discrimination, and the heartless disregard for a segment of the Jamaican population which is being ignored by the privileged and powerful.

May we know God’s will of peace and love for all, even as we hear again from the prophet Isaiah who in Chapter 56:7 notes with reference to formerly despised eunuchs and foreigners, “Even those I will bring to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar; For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.”

Fr Sean Major-Campbell is an Anglican priest and advocate for human dignity and human rights. Send feedback to seanmajorcampbell@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com