Church, State and Guyana

Sep 13, 2013 Editorial

Guyana is a multi-religious country and the State must respect that reality. When we were a colony of Britain, the Christian Church, more specifically the Anglican and Protestant denominations of the “mother country”, occupied a privileged position in the operations of the State, facilitated as they were to run the educational institutions of the State. Christian religious instructions were mandatory for all students. At that time, one had to convert to Christianity to be employed by any arm of the state.
Just before independence, when internal self-government had been granted to the administration, the latter moved to change this state of affairs and control of the state schools was removed from religious bodies. This was the beginning of our local practice of “separation of Church and State”, which had been introduced in the European Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries. The premises of the Enlightenment form the fountainhead of our legal and philosophical outlook.
The American Republic adopted the separation of Church and State when they crafted their constitution in 1787 and introduced what was later dubbed “secularism”. In the First Amendment of their Constitutional Bill of Rights, they expressly prohibited Congress from making laws “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. Secularism did not at any time mean that religion was not to be recognised by the State – simply that the State and its organs should not promote it. Many other countries, including Turkey and France, made the separation more explicit. While Britain in modern times remains a nominally “Christian” country, in all of its practices, the state has acted staunchly secularist.
At our Independence and the formation of our Republic, we adopted a secular Constitution for our multi-religious society. For instance, Public Holidays were designated for the Hindu and Muslim Communities, joining the colonial Christian ones. In our Constitution the “free exercise of religion” is guaranteed under our Fundamental Rights – specifically Article 145, “Protection of Freedom of Conscience”. Based on our history of entanglement of religion and education, Article 145 (3) exploits states: “Except with his own consent, no person attending any place of education shall be required to receive religious instruction…”
In the US, the Courts interpreted religious instruction in schools as violating the “Establishment of Religion clause”. In one famous case, their Supreme Court ruled that public schools cannot endorse religious messages because, “it sends the ancillary message to members of the audience who are non-adherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favoured members of the political community.” It went without saying that no other State institution could violate the clause.
In Guyana, the issue of the separation of Church and State arose in 2009 when several men were charged for “cross-dressing”. Then acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson instructed the men from the bench that they “were confused and should give their lives to Jesus Christ.” The men, along with the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD) appealed the magistrate’s decision on the grounds that she was “improperly influenced by irrelevant considerations.”
The plaintiffs had argued that the cross-dressing offence contravenes the prohibition of discrimination and the guarantees of equality and freedom of expression, under Articles 149 and 146 of the Constitution. In a ruling just released, Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang however ruled against that argument, claiming, “At the highest, (sic) the Chief Magistrate can be accused of proselytising. But proselytising does not constitute a hindrance to freedom of thought and of religion.”
We will not break a lance at this time over his ruling on the “hindrance to freedom of thought and of religion” argument, but we believe that the plaintiffs should be granted relief on the implicit separation of Church and State stipulation of our Constitution as adumbrated above.
If a schoolteacher is prohibited from teaching religion in the classroom, how can we allow a member of the triune that constitute the State, to do otherwise?

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Church, State and Guyana

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