With the series of town hall meetings for discussions on constitutional reform now coming to a close, it is apparent that the matter of same-sex marriage poses the greatest challenges with which the framers of Anguilla’s revised constitution would have to deal.
Minister of Home Affairs, the Honourable Kenneth Hodge, has been moderating these meetings for the past few weeks, and his Permanent Secretary, Dr. Aidan Harrigan, has been the facilitator.
In one such meeting, held at the Immanuel Methodist Church in Blowing Point, on Thursday, October 7th, Child Evangelism Advocate, Mrs. Celia Jones-Connor, left no stone unturned in voicing her opposition against same-sex unions – utilising Biblical principles to support her arguments.
“I am a member of the Anguillian community,” she said, “and I am also a Christian. It is from this background that I am about to speak. Since I have been in Anguilla, as a child, I have often heard it said that Anguilla is a Christian nation. But, in recent times, it seems like we are easily embracing habits that would cause us to depart from that claim.
“God instituted marriage to be between a man and a woman. He created Adam then He made Eve, and He brought her to him for companionship. God later said that for this reason a man should leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife — which was female. I believe that any union which is made with two persons who are not male and female should not even be considered as a marriage in the first place. It would not fit the criteria for marriage, simply because it is not a union between a male and a female, as God ordained.
“With respect to the wording in the constitution, which loosely refers to marriage being ‘between two persons’, I believe that this clause should go as far as to state that marriage should be between ‘a male and a female’. Even as I say that, when I think about how far mankind has gone in realising their wicked imaginations by changing what God has created, it makes me wonder how much more disrespectful to God mankind can get. While God was in the process of creation, at particular points He said it was good, but at the very end He said it was very good.”
She continued her intense deliberations by saying: “So if God is God with all the authority and all the power to create, as He has designed creation, and if He says it was very good, then what right do we have to change it, or what right do we have to refute marriage as He has instituted it when He joined Eve with Adam?”
She went on to assert that apart from changing the fundamentals of marriage, today there are men and women who are altering their natural bodies to transform themselves to be like the opposite gender. “This is done in order to accommodate these new ideas,” she said. “But I believe when we word our constitution, which has so much weight for governing us, it should go as far as to say not just ‘male and female’, but a ‘natural, biological male and natural, biological female’.”
“Now I am aware”, she noted, “that people are saying today we live in societies where social norms are changing. But it does not mean that we have to adopt them. There are some things that are constant and they have been meant to remain constant irrespective to what else changes — and marriage between a man and a woman is one of those unchangeable things.
“When the laws of most countries were written those who crafted those laws made reference to the Laws of God. The laws that govern godly nations invariably line up with the Ten Commandments. But because we want to accommodate, and to be more accepting and tolerant, we are changing our laws to meet the whims and fancy of those who believe that their rights are to go against the Laws of God. We have set out to change so that we, being tolerant, would not be labelled as being hateful.”
At this point, Mrs. Jones-Connor deviated, to some degree, and directly addressed the Hon. Kenneth Hodge stating that, in a recent Press Conference, he was asked by a reporter what was his view on the same-sex marriage issue. She lamented that she was taken aback with his reply which implied that he was open for discussions on negotiations on the matter. She asked him to explain. In response, Mr. Hodge said:
“Lately, on Radio Klass FM, I was asked that same question – and I answered, categorically, that I do not support same sex marriage. But I went on to explain that, as a Minister of Government, I cannot impose my view on everybody else. In this exercise, I am listening to hear what the public has to say. Again, as far as my personal view is concerned, I do not support same-sex marriage. But as Minister, I recognise that my view has to be taken in consideration with the views of everyone else.”
Mrs. Jones-Connor accepted the Minister’s explanation, but hastened to launch a question based on scripture, asking him whether he believes, as the Bible says, that there is no power given other than that given by God…and that God is the one who takes down one power and sets up another. To that the Minister answered, “Yes! I believe that.”
After some short emphatic rebuttal, she continued to share her views on same-sex relationships saying: “In Romans Chapter 1, God says how much He hates homosexuality, and He calls it an abomination. The Scripture here says: ‘Even the women have exchanged the natural relations for unnatural ones. And likewise also, the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men committing indecent acts with other men, doing that which is unseemly.”
“If you look at nature,” she observed, “you will see in the animal kingdom male and female animals. A male animal will always gravitate to a female animal of its kind. In every species of animal, that is the norm. I don’t know now why we would think it is acceptable for humans, whom God created in His own image, to embrace ideas that run contrary to what God has ordained. It takes two of the opposite sex to procreate. That is how life comes forth, according to God’s design.”
She made reference to the fact that God became so angry with the homosexual cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that He destroyed them by fire all because of their abominable same-sex ambitions. She further stressed that God detests same-sex relationships, and that it is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of an angry God.
“So I would dearly ask that we consider God, the One with whom we have to deal for all eternity, when we are deciding on this constitution. Let our consideration of God be the guiding force behind our decisions on this issue.”
