Why do butts so excite Church?

THE EDITOR, Sir: JUSTICE MINISTER Delroy Chuck’s recent call for political leadership to end the anti-buggery law, despite powerful religious bias, has provoked the usual firestorm of protest from our reactionary Christian fundamentalists. These persons are predictably silent when most humanrights violations occur, but gay sex sure seems to excite them.

What these fundamentalists fail to realise or admit is that the first criminal charge against buggery was meant as an attack on the Church itself!

Initially, buggery was only considered a moral failing and tried in ecclesiastical courts. However, for purely economic reasons King Henry VIII introduced the ancient anti-buggery law and deemed it a felony offence. A felony conviction resulted in one’s property being forfeited to the Crown and King Henry wanted to get his hands on the assets of the rich abbeys during his messy divorce from the Roman Catholic Church. Back then, a lot of same-sex activity took place in abbeys, and one can only imagine what happens in those hallowed halls today.

During colonisation, the British imposed these alien statutes on their conquered territories, even though many of their religious beliefs (e.g., in India) previously respected consensual same-gender intimacy.

Jamaica’s new Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms requires a separation of Church and State. The minister’s duty is simply to enforce it. MAURICE TOMLINSON Montego Bay, St James