The changing family

Quote:

‘Many years ago a friend who was a psychologist and a Catholic priest told me that sexuality is the most powerful force in the human person’

JEAN ANTOINE-DUNNE (Dr)

LAST WEEK there was a focus on family. The Ministry of Social Development and Family Services held a high-profile symposium which included speeches that ranged from pointing out the lack of support, in particular 21st century support, for parents of low-income families to a bemoaning of the breakdown in “old-school morals and values.”

The idea that we should go back to the values and morals of yesteryear is an interesting one. As an idea, it is highlighted in the combined statement by church leaders on what, in effect, constitutes marriage – traditionally seen as the “bedrock” of the nuclear family.

So what is a family anyway? Given that so many gay couples in many parts of the world now have children and so many women and even men are single parents, and choose to be single, does this affect how we think of the family?

When I was a young girl attending convent school we were regularly taught by the religious sisters and by sermonising priests that sex was only for procreation. In other words sex should have only one focus. “You must want to conceive a child when you have sex,” sums up that teaching.

Even as a very ignorant teenager that piece of advice seemed a bit odd. Today, few would countenance such ideas. Yet we still continue to delimit our views on the integrity of family life to factors that border on sexuality.

Many years ago a friend who was a psychologist and a Catholic priest told me that sexuality is the most powerful force in the human person. When will our church leaders recognise that sexuality is not something to be censored, but rather to be looked at in the true light of reason and charity?

The statement by the religious heads on June 12 leads one to think that in the effort to stop the perceived disintegration of society, righteous men are once again seeking to cement an idea of society founded on an idea of sexual correctness.

If we follow the line of thinking that led to the joint statement, we might find ourselves in the situation where the churches and religious bodies could legitimately call for a ban on most television programmes that now regularly feature sexual encounters including gay encounters, and where people of all ages apparently enjoy sexual activity without the fear of damnation.

We could also have a call for a ban on certain songs and books, in particular novels, many of which seem to privilege all forms of sexual activity, including same-sex activity.

In fact one of the hallmarks of recent Caribbean writing has been the predominance of same-sex descriptions – in fact, so many of our well known writers, including our own Shani Mootoo, are openly gay and write with deep and moving emotional description of both the desires of their characters and the actions that these desires generate, that we would have few books to discuss in our lecture halls were we to progress along these lines.

But the joint statement by the heads of the country’s major religious groups has opened up a space and a voice in Trinidad and Tobago that is gradually uncovering many of the hidden issues surrounding sexuality within religious institutions and the hypocrisies that permeate the religious veneer behind which so many hide. As Helen Drayton noted on June 24, there is no denying that the Catholic priesthood became a “haven for many gay men,” a situation with which the Catholic Church is struggling.

The family, like the priesthood and religious life, has changed and is evolving, even if the leaders and hierarchy of the established churches refuse to see this. Families now embrace women who have children outside of wedlock and no longer throw them out of the house; contraception is openly promoted, or at least “safe sex;” couples happily live together without marriage; gay brothers, sisters, aunts now legitimately belong to and are embraced by the family, in places outside of the Caribbean anyway. Gay people have children and create families.

If we place limits on the protection of our family members from abuse and harm, then how can we call ourselves a society that respects the family? If the State does not protect its citizens, then how is it legitimate to call itself representative? And what is a church if not a community of love that teaches us to live as families?