By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

FOREIGN Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell yesterday spoke out against religious leaders opposing the four referendum bills, claiming that their “deceptive campaign” against the gender equality vote is “a sin”.

He also insisted that some pastors are using “false

stories” to frighten Bahamians into voting against their “own interest.”

The Fox Hill MP implored his constituents to vote “yes” to all four questions on the ballot, asserting that success of the referendum would be in the best interest of all Bahamians.

“This is a simple matter,” he said at a press conference at the Department of Immigration.

“The government is proposing with agreement of the (Official) Opposition to make men and women equal before the law. If this passes, whatever men have in the Constitution today, women will have and vice versa. That is all this is about.”

He warned that residents should not be “fooled” by opponents of the Constitutional Amendment Bills, suggesting that if the June 7 vote fails, “it will not be the government who loses, but the future generation of Bahamians.”

Mr Mitchell implied that those behind the various vote “no” campaigns were injecting fears about LGBT rights and sovereignty infringement into the debate to camouflage their individual prejudices.

Speaking particularly to the position taken by some religious leaders, Mr Mitchell said that the pastors opposing the referendum don’t have the guts to openly reject women’s rights – the issue he suggested, is driving their opposition to the Bills.

“… What I find is, that these folk who are opposing, these preachers who are opposing cannot, would not dare get up and say in public that they don’t agree with equality for women because they know . . . the church runs off (of) women.”

“So no preacher is going to get up and say, ‘I don’t agree with equality for women’ because they know (there is) no church unless women are there. So they have come up with this smokescreen and nonsense about hidden agendas and all this other stuff,” he said.

Mr Mitchell said the group of pastors should prescribe to the biblical commandment: “Thou shall not bear false witness.”

“… They need to learn that commandment. They need to take Christ as their own personal saviour and ask for forgiveness for running this deceptive campaign. It’s a sin. Because this is simply about equality for women and men; nothing more, nothing less.”

Bill four, regarded as the most controversial, seeks to prevent discrimination of any type based on sex – or being male or female.

The amendment would insert the word “sex” in Article 26 of the Constitution to make it unconstitutional to discriminate based on someone’s gender.

On Wednesday, Christian Council President Rev Dr Ranford Patterson said he was “unequivocally” voting against the bill, claiming that it “scares the hell out of me.” He has fears that if successful, the fourth bill would allow gay marriage.

He said he was still “praying” about how he should vote on the three other bills.

Responding on Wednesday, Mr Mitchell said the government is only looking to have it “circumscribed” into the Constitution that sex is viewed as meaning born male and born female.

He said that anything beyond should be characterised as an attempt to misrepresent that aim of the upcoming referendum.

Mr Mitchell said it was now the responsibility of voters to ensure the passage of the bills, particularly women voters.

“And this is a very simple thing. There are 15,000 odd more women on the rolls than men. Women outnumber men on the electoral rolls, so women are the main beneficiaries of this. Women run everything in this country, this is the last frontier, legal equality. And so, women will have to decide on Tuesday, do they want what men have,” he stated.

Mr Mitchell went on to address recent claims by former Court of Appeal President Dame Joan Sawyer, contending that her comments have been “most injurious.”

Dame Joan, at a recent public forum, expressed her discontent for the bills, calling the upcoming referendum process “unnecessary” as the government has the ability to enact statutory laws through Parliament that would address matters pertaining to the first three bills.

The first three bills deal with issues of citizenship.

Mr Mitchell, however, on Wednesday said while that may be possible, statutory law can be revoked by a Parliament just as quickly as it is introduced.

He argued that the Constitution should show equal discrepancy for the rights of women and men.

“The point also is, men don’t have these (rights) by virtue of the statutory law; they have it by virtue of the Constitution. So all you are trying to do is to say, whatever men have via the Constitution women should have. That’s it.”