Dear Editor,

In the current debate about political correctness, tolerance and discrimination we hear repeatedly that the State has no business in the bedrooms of its citizens. Sounds reasonable, but is it true?

The truth is that the State is already in our bedrooms as it is illegal for us to have sexual intercourse with our parents, siblings, children, or the family pet.

We are told that people have a right to love who they want, and express it how they want in the privacy of their bedrooms, and for that reason backward Jamaica must catch up with other enlightened countries and get rid of our “homophobic buggery law”.

One of the goals of a civilised society is to try to reconcile law and liberty, balancing the rights of individuals against what is best for society as

a whole.

I would argue that the law helps to confine the practice of buggery to the privacy of the bedroom. Once the law is removed, it is then certain that the right to anal penetration will begin to inform and influence the State. If anal penetration is good and normal, then logically there is no barrier to “same-sex” marriage, same-sex adoption, educating children as to the normalcy of this practice, and ultimately punishing those who express the opinion that marriage ought to be between one man and one woman.

Even the term “wife” or “husband” becomes pejorative and offensive to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex (LGBTI) activists.

The homosexual/LGBTI rights agenda/movement is not about the privacy of the bedroom, and private individuals loving who they want. It is about affirming the supremacy of their bedroom practices in the

public square.

Private acts have public consequences, as evidenced by the experience of England, Canada and the United States, where we see that when the bedroom seduces the State, biology, law and common sense have to bow to the new “heterophobia”.

Don’t believe me? How is this for sound biology and common sense? Same-sex couples under the national health system of Britain now have the “right” to “get pregnant” by accessing fertility treatment.

It was reported in the UK newspaper, the Telegraph (among others) in May 2012 that gay and lesbian couples and women over 40 will be offered free IVF (In vitro fertilisation) treatment under new Government proposals. The article reported that “same-sex couples will be given the same rights as heterosexual couples under guidance issued by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence”.

Will changing the “buggery law” really protect bedroom privacy or take us down a very slippery slope? You decide.

Cheryl Stuart

cherylanstuart@gmail.com