An unheeded warning

There were many people who raised the alarm about the plight of the country’s most vulnerable in the wake of the constitutional compromise made over section 16 and the right to non-discrimination. Not enough people listened, however, and as the HRC and Equality Cayman warned, one year after the implementation of the constitution legislation regarding people with disabilities is a long way off.

The immovable intolerance of the church representatives over their objection to any kind of rights being given to homosexuals or transgenders was so powerful they managed to ensure that many others with varying degrees of vulnerability would not have the right to be free from discrimination either.

It probably comes as no surprise that more than eighteen months after the legislative sub-committee’s report was given to government no proposed legislation to protect the disabled has materialized.

We were warned that this is exactly what would happen and why the Cayman Islands Bill of Rights needed a powerful anti-discrimination clause – government simply could not be trusted to pass the necessary meaningful legislation.

The Human Rights Committee and Equality Cayman in their campaign to have section 16 apply to all areas of public life were wiser than the rest of us. They knew that the government would continue to drag its feet when it comes to implementing real and far reaching legislation that could genuinely create a fairer and more equitable society for those suffering both physical and mental disabilities.

The implementation of the Bill of Rights, which forms part of the Cayman Islands Constitution 2009, in two years time will only protect those with disabilities in the parameters of the areas covered by the Bill of Rights, such as the right to a fair trial, but it won’t give the right to have wheelchair access to the courtroom.

There are so many areas of public life denied to those with mental and physical disabilities and an opportunity was presented with the implementation of the Constitution but because of outdated prejudices and bigotry over sexuality the moment was lost.

The irony, of course, is that those who profess to care for the weak and the vulnerable, the ones who teach the lessons of love and compassion and selflessness from the pulpits every Sunday, are the ones that have condemned thedisabled to be at the mercy of fickle political administrations.

Their homophobia and obsession with sexual sin has brought us to this point where, at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the disabled in Cayman are not much better off than they were at the end of the first decade of the 20th.

Governments can never be trusted to get to grips with legislation that isn’t a big vote winner or income generator, especially in difficult economic times. The chance was there to force the government’s hand to enact legislation to protect the disabled with section 16 in the Constitution – the chance to demonstrate that the people cared enough to enshrine rights for those who are the most vulnerable in the highest law of the land.

But the moment was lost and because the church was so repulsed by the idea of two people, who might love each other but happened to be of the same sex, having an official union of some kind they were prepared to sacrifice the elderly, the sick, women, children and, of course, people with disabilities.

Some time ago the charismatic and most definitely Christian Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu gave an interview with the BBC in which he lamented the church’s obsession with people’s bedroom habits and in particular homophobia. He pointed out that the church as an institution seemed to care less and less about the incredible inequalities in the world and the desperate plight of the poor and vulnerable. He said its leaders spoke little against a structural system that allowed two thirds of the world’s population to live in abject poverty but it ranted and raved about gay marriage and homosexuals being ordained constantly.

Here in the Cayman Islands the church’s protest against section 16 was strongly linked to homophobia. The irrational and illogical obsession with the issue of sexuality has landed us here with still no protective legislation for those that need it most and no real protection in the Constitution either.

Perhaps the church could now at least try and redeem itself by a supporting a campaign to get the necessary legislation passed to protect those which it exposed. After all we can live in hope.