I find the comments by bloggers on this page in response to this article disheartening- mired in the past and politricks. Growing up, I was a great admirer of Dame Joan as a legal mind in the Bahamas, but like George Smith and Loretta Butlet suggest- she was dead wrong to comment without having even read the bills. That is pure ignorance and shameful coming from someone of her stature. shameful. i am deeply disappointed in her. The fact that Smith and Butler- diametrically opposed politically - can both see beyond party towards the necessity of these speaks more for their love of humanity and country, despite whatever past they have- which I am not privy to- than the commenters here. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. A straight YES for me come June 7.

This is very interesting. I applaud these transgender women for speaking up and publicly for themselves and their human rights. That is a brave thing to do in this country. I will be voting yes across the board on June 7 and while specifically transgendered people are not covered by these bills, their presence and voice suggests that the country needs to grow up and stop the hypocrisy. Protect the human rights of all.

this has little to do with Arawak a Homes and everything to do with "JohnSands" and his attorneys Smith, Smth and Smith. they are the criminals here, because they committed fraud to quiet land owned by Arawak Homes and sold it to these poor people. if John Sands actually exists, he along with his lawyers should be in JAIL and should be made to compensate all the people they falsely sold land too.

Point 1: If Gerhard Beukes provided a low cost estimate to the government to get the contract and now wants to conduct a corporate hold up to extricate more money from them- if i was the government, I would say- no deal.
Point 2: Bran is on to something here. Why borrow money and not do the work? 23+ million for 18 facilities and not a one built? We know the money is being paid back through VAT so where did the initial grant go?
One day the government of the Bahamas will actually do something in the best interest of the people. one day.

Thanks for personalizing this Messenger. We have three wonderful boys in our family born to their Bahamian ma and American Pa who could be of benefit to this country sometime in the future. They should be allowed to do so as citizens.

Exactly!!!!!

now that is some steaming hot BS! so far we have done a relatively good job separating this from politics. let's keep it that way. for once Bahamians lets act like a country in support of bills that recognize the humanity of us all and not some red and yellow tribe that just has us either running in place or falling behind. I am appalled by the hypocrisy of th church in this matter. There is NO room for bigotry in this country.

They are already open and you cant sail through like we used to- Lines are long in Havana!

My fellow Bahamians, refuse to be sidetracked by dumb, ignorant positions based on fear coming from insecure men and delusional women in this country. Sad a lot of this is coming from so called Christians. I hope this man's church ignores him. A man ain't one bit smarter than a woman and a woman is no less than a man. If men have been marrying foreigners left and right for the past million years and the biggest fear from this is women marrying foreign men then we need to catch ourselves. This is about a fundamental human right. Men and women are EQUAL. Stop thinking Bahamian women are dumb. If they decide to marry a foreign man so what? from what I can see, we could use a little infusion because Too many Bahamian men are lousy and busy doing the bank lane shuffle, too many lonely women running around this town, too much man sharing going on and too much combrucktion going on in families because of cheating man. Besides We need to diversify this gene pool, its hard to have conversations with some of these young people- something wrong.

Of course they are because women should have the same citizenship rights as men.