RebuildTT not anti-gay

RebuildTT, the NGO that recently hosted several religious leaders who spoke out against LGBT rights, is not an anti-LGBT group. Instead, it is a group focussed on the traditional family.

This according to RebuildTT president Gregory Lal-Beharie, who said the NGO consisted of individuals he had known for years who shared the same views. He said they had a vested interest in the country and formed the group for the love of TT.

“We are a small community of conservative people looking at the development of the country from the family perspective. We are not a political group and we are not a religious group. It would be true to say we believe in God and we believe in the nuclear family. We support anything pro-traditional family.”

That is why, he said, RebuildTT felt the need to contact these various religious leaders and bring them together for the press conference that took place at the Archbishop’s House in Port of Spain on Monday. There, leaders from several Christian, Muslim and Hindu groups called for the Marriage Act to be amended to ensure that a marriage could only be between a biological male and a biological female. They also asked that no amendments be made to the Equal Opportunity Act to facilitate the LGBT community.

He said the leaders all had the same view but they were not coming together. Since there was strength in unity, he felt it would make a bigger impact if they made a joint statement.

“We have not had a meeting with this or the previous Archbishop along with the Muslims and Hindus and other Christians in quite a while. They got together because each of them feel strongly about it.”

Lal-Beharie said those of the LGBT community had recently been demanding rights, claiming it included the right to be married, and to change the education syllabus. He said this international agenda was being pushed on people so RebuildTT felt the need to push back.

“We have the European Union giving a whole set of funding to a bunch of LGBT groups. It’s not really coming from within TT. It’s coming in from certain heavily funded groups to implement that agenda here.”

For example, he said Dr Gabrielle Hosein of the Gender and Development Unit of the University of the West Indies was telling people there should be sex education and sexuality training for preschoolers in order to protect them from sexual molestation. And Dr Katija Khan, president of the TT Association of Psychologists, told parents on television if their child was gay they should not worry because they were born that way.

“They are trying to work on the minds of children...There is no imperial evidence that anybody is born gay. But there is evidence to show that people can be socialised gay.” He gave the example discussed at the press conference of a young boy who started showing feminine characteristics and behaviours after the birth of his sister. A psychological evaluation showed that the boy felt he had to be a girl to get the attention of his parents so he began acting like one.

“There are a lot of people in the world who depend on the opinions of the masses. They don’t go to people who are learned, or go researching for themselves for the truth. And people in TT are being bombarded with this every which way.”

He said people have said that the sexual preferences of others should be respected. However, he asked if it was right to respect people’s sexual preferences if they preferred animals or children.

Lal-Beharie said people in the LGBT community were complaining about persecution and being attacked because they were gay. However, he said TT, by nature, was a very tolerant society where “everyone lived in harmony.” He therefore believed they were using “gay bashing” to bring attention to the LGBT movement.

He added that crime was affecting everyone in TT so LGBT people could not truthfully say they were being targeted because of their orientation. “I happen to know that people who are gay live very risky lives. They tend to be out at very odd times and they end up being victims of crime.”

Despite these opinions, Lal-Beharie stressed that RebuildTT is not anti-LGBT, but did not want the ideas and beliefs forced upon the population. Instead, the idea behind the NGO was to support the family.

“If legislation comes up in Parliament and we think it would impact the family, we will speak out about it.”

Therefore, its members would like to see more family-oriented recreational spaces such as a camping grounds where families could camp at a secure location without fear of crime. He said they were also working on a national traffic plan since people spend hours in traffic every day and lose a lot of family time.

Lal-Beharie said when they decide to speak about an issue in the future they do not intend to just criticise but promise to present suggestions as well.