EDITOR, The Tribune.

Among the “YES Bahamas” propaganda commercials being run on various radio stations in an effort to encourage a blanket “yes” vote on the four Constitution Amendment Bills is one that talks about a girl named Rachel who can’t open a bank account because she’s not a Bahamian.

The reason given is that Rachel’s Bahamian father was not married to her foreign mother. The commercial, which seeks to encourage voters to vote yes to Bill 3, is spreading two pieces of factually false information.

First, we’re told in the commercial that Bill 3 seeks to enable an unmarried Bahamian man to pass his citizenship to his children like Rachel who were born out of wedlock to a foreign woman. That is partly true.

What the producers of the commercial failed to say is that Rachel’s father could have also been married to another woman when he fathered Rachel out of wedlock with the foreign woman.

Yes, Bill 3 also seeks to enable married Bahamian men who commit adultery with foreign women and father children by them anywhere in the world to be able to pass citizenship on to those children, once paternity is proven. But, conveniently, this additional information that would help to inform how some voters would vote is withheld. I wonder why?

Second, we’re told in the commercial that Bill 3 will enable Rachel to apply to be a Bahamian. That is totally false. Bill 3 offers nothing to Rachel and those who also find themselves in her predicament.

If Bill 3 is approved by voters, it will only benefit children conceived under circumstances like Rachel and who are born AFTER Bill 3 comes into effect. Therefore, it is totally false to give people like Rachel (and her Bahamian father and foreign mother) false hopes about what Bill 3 will do, if approved by voters.

If the government was really concerned about people like Rachel, it would have long ago used its power to grant citizenship under Article 13 of the Constitution to grant them whatever citizenship rights it deemed appropriate. But nothing has been done because they do not really care about people like Rachel.

It’s all about politics and using Bills like Bill 3 to serve as distractions for Bill 4, which is the crown jewel “yes” that they really want. Yes, the success of Bill 4 is what the government wants most, and here’s the reason: they want to set the stage for same sex-marriage to be imposed on us by the Privy Council.

My own view is that a far better approach is to give children like Rachel an entitlement to Bahamian citizenship when they turn 18, provided they meet the national security requirements and renounce any other citizenship held.

And until then, caring policy decisions by the government can make their lives easy so they can do simple things like open a bank account and attend College of the Bahamas at the same cost as a Bahamian citizen. What’s so hard about making these simple policy decisions?

PASTOR CEDRIC MOSS,

Nassau,

May 18, 2016.