CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM: AN OPPORTUNITY FOR ECONOMIC FREEDOM IN JAMAICA
Constitutional reform is a serious issue, so we cannot afford for the process to become inundated with frivolities. Ensuring good governance and economic freedom should be the main issues tackled by the reform committee. In determining the best course of action for Jamaica, reformers must benchmark the American constitution, as it is an exemplary document for promoting effective governance and commerce. On another note, Marlene Malahoo Forte's address in Parliament has reassured Jamaicans that the reform process won't be swamped by trite social issues like abolishing the buggery law or legalising abortion. Propagandists are arguing that laws criminalising buggery and abortion violate human rights, but they are wrong.
Buggery does not speak exclusively to homosexuals, and there is no will to enforce the buggery law, so they cannot claim that the government is infringing their choice to engage in anal sex because homosexuals are having an abundance of sex without government interference. However, demands to repeal the buggery law are inspired by political incentives. If the buggery law is abolished, activists will score a major political victory in the quest to permit same-sex marriage. They are labouring under the misguided assumption that same-sex marriage is a right, however there is no right to marriage, but rather a right to free association, marriage is only a benefit of the latter. Moreover, those contending that legalising homosexual marriage is an affront to Jamaica's Christian character are off the mark. Biblical doctrines oppose homosexuality, however concepts such as toleration covered by religious freedom and secularism are Christian notions.
Therefore, Christians are free to disallow homosexual marriages in the church, yet they are not required to express a political stance on secular homosexual marriages, because Christianity accommodates the right to reject biblical precepts. Christians condemning homosexual marriage think that they are defending Christianity by opposing same-sex marriage, when they are actually preserving a philosophical definition of marriage. Marriage as a legal bond between a man and a woman has a long secular history in Western society, hence the defense of heterosexual marriage is not contingent on being a Christian. As for abortion, this problem is primarily emotional.
The New York Times in a report titled "Who gets abortion in America", published on May 3, 2022, asserts that on average candidates are poor and unmarried. Abortion is perpetuated by desperate women who think they have no option, upper and middle-class women rarely have abortions. If working-class women had more stable relationships then they would be less likely to consider abortion. Abortion is invariably the pet project of radical feminists who reject traditional families. Neither is abortion a right, since the foetus is not a woman's body and as such, the benefit of privacy cannot be extended to abortion, because where there is no right to property, no benefit of privacy can be established. Now, that abortion and buggery have been contextualized, we can begin to focus on the business of constitutional reform to set the country on a path to prosperity. Citizens are free to lobby for same-sex marriage and the legalisation of abortion, but they will not distract Marlene Malahoo Forte and her team from doing real work.