VIDEOS: Why the Bain incident? (On the cultural imperialism and dechristianising push of the homosexualist agenda from the North, leading to "rights" assertions and who pays the piper calls the tune aid power games)

A correspondent X has given us some food for thought video links that help us understand context and implications of the Bain incident more deeply and more clearly. (Thanks, X; God bless and protect you. And X you must remain, given ruthless agendas that are now afoot.)

Let's start with two videos.

Video 1: Family Watch International, on the homosexualist dechristianising push from the North:




Video 2:  Consequences for the integrity of  expert opinion in courts, policymaking, public health and university education and certification in the Caribbean under the who pays the piper calls the tune principle. (As in, do you seriously think that any academic in his right mind will now speak his mind freely based on the relevant science and epidemiological facts, in a court or in a policy research panel, or in setting public health policy, or in the classroom? The assertions by representatives of UWI to the contrary are either ill informed or utterly cynically deceitful.) So, we watch as CVM TV Jamaica gives a reflective on the Bain Affair (obviously, to be viewed in light of 1, not endorsed one way or another): kindly, go to the link as there is no embed.

 What is going on here?

Let us refer back to the spiritual geo-strategic tidal waves vision I have been discussing with Caribbean church leaders for some twenty years now, after I became aware in the mid 90's that we would be facing tidal waves from the North and from the East, from about 2000 AD on. 

As has, unfortunately happened:

(NB: Initially, in the late 90's, I tried to get church leaders to mobilise a regional strategic initiative in anticipation. No critical mass coalesced, so I have since 1999 on been working on fostering understanding of the signs of our times and on building centres of refuge and recovery, towards resurgence. A David Generation strategy -- the College of Adullam's hidden cave draws in the desperate who by being strengthened become the core of a great, transforming generation. For, it turns out that we the people of the Caribbean are potentially highly strategic for the global mission of the church. If, we will only wake up, wise up and act with determined, sound sustained effort.)

So, to me, the Bain incident and the concommittant imposition of censorship on the single most important concentration of intellectual horsepower in the Anglophone Caribbean are utterly unsurprising. Saddening, but no surprise.

Nor is the attempt spearheaded by Mr Obama, Mrs Clinton and the nominally "Conservative" leader of Britain, as well as the UN and other bodies, to embed homosexualism as a "right," imagined to be backed by firm scientific "proof" that such is genetically driven. 

Nor, is the sort of argument that Prime Minister Freundel Stuart of Barbados made in a book published by UWI Press which was edited by Sir George Alleyne, Chancellor of UWI and Mrs Belle Antoine, wife of St Lucia's Prime Minister and Dean of Law on UWI's Trinidad campus at St Augustine. Remember, the following was published a year after Dr Bain's measured, scientifically grounded expert testimony was submitted in a report to the Belize Supreme Court, which I have marked up, cf below for why:

(It bears noting that Professor Bain is a Christian, a medical practitioner, and one of the pioneers in reaching out to victims of HIV-AIDS, since 1983. Who, until he was fired by UWI under pressure of activists on a flimsy excuse, was based right there in the UWI.)

Like unto this, here is an excerpt from the 2008-12 PANCAP regional HIV-AIDS strategy document, under CARICOM authority and the sign-off of Prime Minister Denzil Douglas of St Kitts:

Let us respond:

1 --> Yes, I know "lie" is a very strong word, one I use with the greatest reluctance. Unfortunately, it is on my considered reflection, relevant and fair, factually grounded comment given the responsibilities of leaders at this level to correct rather than propagate agenda-serving misrepresentations and pivotal misunderstandings, in light of reasonably accessible corrective information. So, we must face sobering facts, and use the right, blunt terms for actions for which there is no excuse, actions, sadly, taken at the very highest levels of leadership in our region.

2 -->  In this regard, we should focus on the following definition, which speaks for itself:

To lie is to state something with disregard to the truth with the intention that people will accept the statement as truth . . . . even a true statement can be used to deceive. In this situation, it is the intent of being overall untruthful rather than the truthfulness of any individual statement that is considered the lie . . . . One can state part of the truth out of context, knowing that without complete information, it gives a false impression. Likewise, one can actually state accurate facts, yet deceive with them . . . . One lies by omission when omitting an important fact, deliberately leaving another person with a misconception. Lying by omission includes failures to correct pre-existing misconceptions. Also known as a continuing misrepresentation . . . . A misleading statement is one where there is no outright lie, but still retains the purpose of getting someone to believe in an untruth . . . [Wikipedia summary definition of lying (acc: Jul 23, 2011)]

3 --> I apologise for ruffled feathers, but not for speaking in plain short and unfortunately well warranted words; in a situation where there has been much evasion of the need to fairly and squarely seek, stand on, speak, respect, accept and appropriately respond to the truth.

4 --> Next, we need to reckon with the reality of an agenda that is in the process of capturing the policy process and the conventional wisdom on HIV-AIDS, homosexuality and related matters, an agenda that as PM Stuart's words show all too plainly, is anti-Christian, smugly over-confident that it has cornered the market on the truth, and contemptuous to Christians.

5 --> Let us observe how the PANCAP document falsely characterises Buggery Law, as criminalisation of homosexuality: 

• Homosexuality, male or female, is properly understood to be an orientation, a habitual pattern of finding oneself attracted to members of one's sex. By contrast, 
• Buggery Law addresses a particular and notorious sexual act, which is insanitary, demonstrably medically damaging [cf this current gang rape case in Jamaica] and statistically strongly linked to the spreading of sexually transmissible diseases. 
• So, whether or not our region decides that the act should be decriminalised, that the act is deemed a criminal offense [largely, in connexion with the historic problem of its use in the corruption of young boys] is not equal to the criminalisation of homosexuality, for
• we must first recognise that obviously an act is not synonymous with an attitude. 
• To conflate the two is misleading and needlessly polarising, and is inexcusable at this level.

6 --> Now, according to one of the activists who wrote to UWI, Dr Carolyn Gomez, this PANCAP document represents the regional consensus to which Dr Bain was an alleged part, and is a smoking gun on how he has broken trust with the agreed consensus that we must do away with Buggery Laws in order to allow a greater reach of HIV-AIDS efforts to homosexuals. 

7 --> This claim is itself doubtful, as the UNAIDS 2012 report on the reach of Jamaica's HIV-AIDS programme (spearheaded by Dr Bain) shows that in Jamaica there is a reach to 87% of MSMs as contrasted with 69% in Germany and 39% in Brazil. So, having Buggery Laws on the books does not prevent having world class reach. So, this is at best a serious misunderstanding.

8 --> But, we must observe the very next sentence, in which the target now shifts to age of consent and statutory rape laws. There is simply no way that there can be a regional lesson learned consensus that we need to do away with age of consent law in order to better reach out to underage persons vulnerable to HIV-AIDS infection. 

9 --> That is, a radical and dubious agenda has been misrepresented as a consensus lesson learned, in a regional strategy document, indicating capturing of the policy process by unbalanced radicals. Which has then been misrepresented to the public and is now being backed up by intimidation, who pays the piper calls the tune and censorship. This cannot be a mere misunderstanding, it is willful deceit.

10 --> And just as, the people and lawmakers of our region will have serious reason to balance whatever claims are valid that age of consent laws may hamper HIV-AIDS outreach with the wider concerns that actually just led Montserrat to RAISE the age of consent to eighteen, so also, the people and lawmakers of our region have a perfect right to reconsider Buggery Laws in light of a balance of complex factors, concerns and due considerations. We refuse to be rushed into unwise decisions pushed by radical and untrustworthy agendas.

11 --> But, some will protest, homosexuality is an unchangeable genetically stamped orientation, that is therefore to be properly regarded as a right, even, a basic human right. 

12 --> This is a misrepresentation, based on a misunderstanding of the actual balance of the science on the merits, as can be further followed up here. Excerpting a summary from that book, as blogged in KF earlier:

a book-length summary of relevant evidence by Neil and Briar Whitehead . . . deserves to be far better known than it is. Clipping the introduction and summary:

The West has been subject to such a campaign of misinformation and disinformation in the last 20-30 years that its public institutions, from legislatures and judiciaries to the church and mental health professions widely believe that the homosexual orientation is innate—in the sense of biologically imprinted—and therefore unchangeable. 
The implications of this are that anyone who makes the scientifically true statements below is considered the one who is misinformed.

• sexual orientation is not inborn but develops over some years in response to an individual’s response to life events— as many human predicaments do
• homosexual orientation can change, i.e half the homosexual population naturally moves towards heterosexuality over time (without any therapeutic interventions), and further and
faster with counselling and support
• The same-sex attracted are not 10% of the population but (including bisexuals) much closer to 2.5%

The West has lost its way on this issue, and today we are seeing the outcome . . . 

Those are quite strong words, but they are backed up. Clipping the summary from Ch 1 in the 2010 online downloadable version (and of course, there is much more, with a lot of details; especially note the rebuttals to common myths):

No mainstream geneticist is happy with the idea that genes dictate behaviour, particularly homosexual behaviour.
• Genetically dictated behaviour is something that has so far been discovered only in very simple organisms.
• From an understanding of gene structure and function there are no plausible means by which genes could inescapably force SSA or other behaviours on a person. Genes create proteins not preferences.
• No genetically determined human behaviour has yet been found. The most closely genetically-related behaviour yet discovered (aggression in Dutch males) has shown itself remarkably responsive to counselling.
• If SSA were genetically dictated, it would have bred itself out of the population in only several generations, and wouldn’t be around today.
• Generally, geneticists settle for some genetic influence of rather undefined degree, most agreeing that many genes (from at least five or six to many hundreds) contribute to any particular human behaviour.
• A genetically dominated SSA caused by such a cluster of genes could not suddenly appear and disappear in families the way it does. It would stay around for many generations. So SSA is not produced by many genes.
• The occurrence of SSA in the population is too frequent to be caused by a chance mutation in a single gene. So a single gene is not responsible for SSA. Nor would many genes all mutate at once.
• SSA occurs too frequently to be caused by a faulty pre-natal developmental process, so it is not innate in that sense either.
• The widespread age-range of first homosexual attraction is very unlike the narrow time-spread of genetically driven phases of human life, e.g gestation time, puberty, menopause, making homosexuality very unlikely to be genetically driven. The histone system which controls genetic expression is strongly affected by the environment, e.g nurturing, making searches for individual genes responsible for certain behaviours, mostly pointless.
• Same-sex attraction could be about 10% genetically influenced and opposite sex attraction about 15%. But this is weak and indirect, e.g genes making a man tall don’t also produce basketball players.
• SSA falls more naturally into the category of a psychological trait

In an earlier version of the book, the following comparison is used, to present a helpful comparison:

If a girl becomes pregnant at age fifteen, we could argue that she is genetically
predisposed. We could say that in her culture, her genes gave her the kind of
face and figure that send male hormones into orbit and bring her under a level of pressure that she is unable to resist, and she is fertile. But that’s about the strength of the genetic influence. There are a huge number of environmental factors that could also have brought the pregnancy about, from cancellation of the basketball game she was going to watch with a girlfriend, permission to use her boyfriend’s father’s car, her boyfriend’s company, the movie they had just viewed together, and failure to use a contraceptive, to big environmental factors like personal values systems, peer group pressure, and an emotionally distant father.

In short, there is no responsible way to escape the implication that -- whatever influences we are exposed to and however they may help shape our choices -- the common sense view that on the whole we are significantly responsible for our behaviours makes excellent sense, and that by and large the habits we form are significantly influenced by cumulative choices we make. That includes cases of bondage to life-dominating destructive sins, habits and addictions [ --> cf. here at NCSTS on the 12 step addiction recovery process as a way out] . . .

13 --> This is why we may read from 2000 years ago, in an AD 55 letter by the Apostle Paul, in which he described the well known -- but often overlooked or dismissed -- fact of dramatic, positive moral transformation of life by the power of spiritual change:

1 Cor 6:⁹ Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals, ¹⁰ thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the verbally abusive, and swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ Some of you once lived this way. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. [NET]

14 --> That is, just as for the more familiar drunkards, swindlers, thieves and adulterers etc, both passive and active partner homosexuals can find and have found moral liberation and transformation through spiritually empowered change. Fact, demonstrated fact, with thousands of current cases behind it.

15 --> And, therefore, hope.

16 --> Hope, rooted in the tough but concerned love that tells the unwelcome truth and calls for repentance and transformation. Just as, Jesus once withstood those who would stone a woman caught in the act of adultery and having driven off the challengers, he then asks her, where are your accusers? Gone. Then he concludes: neither do I condemn you, go . . . leave your life of sin.

17 --> Yes, some of us  Christians in our region have been less than lovely in how we have responded to homosexual sinners (and adulterers etc too), but that does not change the facts or the well-founded hope. 

18 --> Nor, the call to national reformation that is implicit in our discipling- the- nations mandate. Let us, too, turn to and live by the truth in love.

19 --> Some will say, But, but, but . . . this is a RIGHTS issue!

20 --> That calls for a closer examination of what a fundamental human right is:

• Namely, a binding moral expectation or even demand to be respected in regards to our lives, liberty, property, innocent reputation etc because of our inherent dignity and worth as human beings. 
• For instance, we have a right to life and it is self-evidently wrong to kidnap, torture, rape and murder a young child (or a woman . . . as there seems to be a horrific wave of in India just now . . . or a man).
• That is rights are inseparable from duties and so we cannot properly claim a right to X unless X is in the right. 
• For, patently, other people can bear no duty to do or to approve or to aid and abet us in doing wrong.
• Which puts the grounding of OUGHT right in the centre of the concerns and the challenge to bridge the notorious IS-OUGHT gap.
• That is, in the foundation of the world (the root of reality), there must be an IS fully capable of bearing the awesome weight of OUGHT.
• For this, there is but one serious candidate, after centuries of debate. 
• Namely, the inherently good Creator God, who is a necessary -- thus eternal -- and maximally great being. (Precisely the sort of Being who is revealed in the gospel and the wider Judaeo-Christian Scriptures and tradition.)
• This solidly grounds not only personal morality, but also rights and justice along with the state as God's servants tasked to defend and uphold the civil peace of justice, and therefore the  restraining of wrongdoing.
• Those who reject this, end up, invariably, in some sort of radical relativisation of morals and open the door to the nihilist credo that might and manipulation make 'right.'
• Which, with all due respect seems to be what is going on on this matter.
• With a clear, declared agenda to destroy marriage and the family also on the table, as for instance Russian-Australian Journalist and Lesbian activist Masha Gessen has openly declared:

(Cf also the Girgis et al paper.)

21 --> Therefore, we need to examine the homosexualist rights claim very seriously, its link to the way activists want us to respond to HIV-AIDS, and issues of law and the defence of family and marriage. On which issues, we Christians will claim and use our rights and freedoms to speak out.

22 --> In this light, Prime Minister Stuart's fulminations against Christians as clipped above, come across as ill-advised and mean spirited as well as willfully distorting and misleading.

23 -->  On the part of a man with access to abundant resources to know better, and on the part of editors who did or should have known better.
__________________________

For shame!

It is plainly, a time to take a stand, lovingly yes, respectfully yes, but forcefully and without flinching, given what is now so plainly on the table. END