Irie Tools (Business & Technology)

Today, I take a detour into politics. I read this story in today’s Gleaner, J-FLAG not supporting Canadian ultimatum, but the issue doesn’t affect me directly and this blog is not about politics, so didn’t occur to me to write about this issue here. After I read this post, Canada’s Queer Ultimatum, I was about to comment on it, but then it occured to me that this is a good opportunity to talk about wider issues of justice in Jamaica. Are our laws just or unjust?

First off, let me say that I find it very irritating that people from abroad could even think that they can demand that we change our laws or run public service campaigns. Besides, a public service campaign to change people attitudes on this issue:

• Would not work (and may even backfire and make things worse for homosexuals).
• Would be political suicide for any government (you usually don’t get anywhere by demanding that people to commit suicide).

However, putting my personal irritation aside, the really important issue is. Are our laws against buggery, just? Is it justice to imprision consenting adults for what they do in private? If the answer is, yes, then we should not allow threats to change our position, but if the answer is, no, then we should not wait for foreigners to demand we change our laws? I regularly see Jamaicans on TV chanting, “we want justice”, but of course, the chant is always about justice for themselves. I don’t see many people (Jamaicans for Justice is a notable exception) concerned about justice for other people. I strongly believe that the best way, to protect my rights, is to protect the rights of everyone.

How do we protect the rights of everyone? The first step, it seems to me, is to make sure that our laws are just, but what makes a law just or unjust? In my opinion, justice must be based on principles, and not preferences. We can debate what these principles should be, but to me, there is no question that the principles come first, and that the law must be based on the principles. Luckily people are very good at coming up with just principles. My personal favourite is

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

The problem is that people are not very good at living by their principles, especiecially when these principles become inconvenient.

Since I brought this up, let me volunteer my principles for making just laws.

1. All human beings, without exception, have equal rights. In other words, there are no second class, human beings. There are rich poeple, and poor people, people we like and people we don’t like, but that should have absolutely nothing to do with their rights. If we lived in isolation from each other, then as far as I am concerned this principle would cover everything. End of story. However, because we live together, sometimes our rights conflict, and in that situation it may be necessary to deprive people of certain rights. Which brings me to my second principle.
2. Depriving someone of a right is not something to be done lightly, you must demonstrate that this is both necessary and just. Legally you can make laws by a vote in parliament, but is that necessarily justice? Obviously not, the only possible justification for depriving someone of one of their rights is to preserve a more important right of someone else. I ask the question, what other justification could there be, if we all have equal rights? How do we decide which right is more important? Good question. This is where things get tricky, and where further discussion is needed.

Applying these principles will not always be easy, but in this particular case, it seems easy to me. The laws against buggery deprive some people of the right to have sex in the way want. On the other hand, what is the right being preserved? The right not to be buggered if you don’t want to be? Obviously a very important right, but I assume that there are other laws that can preserve this right, and it is certainly not necessary to outlaw bugger to preserve this right. It seems to me that the only right that our buggery laws are necessary to preserve, is something like, the right to live in a country where there is no buggery. Looking at this objectively, it is obvious to me that the right of people to have sex the way they want is more important than the right to live in a country with no buggery. This may not be a popular position, but that is the thing about principles, if they are worth anything at all, they have to apply even when we don’t like where they lead.

I must confess here, that I am a hypocrite. Why? Well, I have written a lot of fine sounding words about principles and rights, including this:

I strongly believe that the best way, to protect my rights, is to protect the rights of everyone.

but the truth is, I would rather not be trying to protect the right of consenting adults to commit buggery, because of the stigma attached to this issue. I definitely do not want to appear to be advocating or supporting buggery. I don’t want people to think, “ohh, he is against the buggery laws, so he must be gay” (which I am not, by the way). So yes, I am a hypocrite, but I would be a even bigger one, if I failed to try and protect this right. I would be saying, we must protect the rights of everyone (but in this case, it is too inconvenient for me, so I won’t bother). We must protect the rights of everyone, and everyone means everyone.

Anyway, leaving the subject of buggery. What about our other laws? For some reason, the laws against Ganja, prostitution, and gambling come readily to my mind. Are these laws just? Are the rights we take away from people always more important than the rights we preserve? How important to you are the rights of other people, and does it make a difference who these people are?