The gay-friendly Ministers and MPs and accountability

 

Friday morning after the 51st anniversary of the Republic of Guyana and the Ministry of Education tweets a beautiful meme with a rainbow covered pride heart with the Minister of Education Priya Manickchand affirming to 'all persons of the LGBTQ community' like the beautiful hymn about Jesus "you have a friend in me"

The comment was generated in response to the bizarre comments made in the Parliament in which a couple of Members of Parliament of the PPP and PNC and AFC - supposedly gay friendly political parties - used homophobic slurs in their references to their Honourable colleauges. The comments included a sickening reference to an allegation of child sexual abuse. 

It is nice to think of some Government official responsible for propaganda and promoting Education programmes going to find the nice rainbow images to create the meme. It is easy to embrace the Minister (and all other MPs) who are not like 'the rest'.

In 2015, another of the Minister's colleagues, then Minister of Health Bheri Ramsarran, unreservedly said he would get his women to slap and strip Sherlina Nageer.  Bheri Ramsarran is now one of Minister Manickchand's comrades in Parliament and is still employed at the Ministry of Health.

Does  the LGBTQ community want friends who have no problem collaborating and working in democratic comradeship with people who have contempt for women and have no problem calling for violence against any woman?

 In 2009, the gay friendly Minister, then Minister of Human Services,  had nominated her PPP colleague  Kwame McCoy to the Rights of the Children Commission. There were public allegations of child sexual abuse against Kwame McCoy. The Minister  did nothing to initiate the Constitutional provisions to resolve the allegations against her  nominee and comrade, and there is no public record of any independent investigation or resolution of the allegations.  

Does the LGBTQ community need friends who will not do all in their power to investigate allegations of child sexual abuse against any comrade or colleague?

Does the LGBTQ community need friends who will talk nice, but not do anything to repeal the laws which discriminate against LGBTQ citizens? 

I see the beautiful gay friendly Meme and think of the women who are struggling to pay for bandwidth to educate their children. I think of the parents of children with special needs who have to bear the costs of accessing education, of the hustle and struggle which families of children with special needs have to access education and wonder when we will understand, that being friendly to LGBTQ persons should also mean access to hassle free education services for children with special needs, and all children of Guyana?

So now is a wonderful opportunity for the persons of the LGBTQ community to hold their friend accountable. 

It is a good time to promote friendships which recognise that calls for LGBTQ equality intersect with protection of children, with zero tolerance for gender based violence, and with dismantling rather than supporting and nurturing the systems which discriminate against not only against LGBTQ people, but any citizen of Guyana.


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