Kingdom Life Church Senior Pastor Cedric Moss, as he’s done in the past concerning, Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival, is now urging the government to think long and hard about facilitating any immoral conduct in public.
Pastor Moss’ comments came after the LGBTI community in The Bahamas, has advocated for a pride week.
Just recently, the LGBTI community announced potential plans to have a Pride Bahamas week in June 2020, with the launch of the same being done during the 2020 Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival season.
The hope is to use the week to sensitize and educate Bahamians on its community.
Pastor Moss said although the community may be sincere in what it wishes to achieve – in sensitizing Bahamians to the homosexual community – it’s immoral and degrading.
“I say the larger issue is for The Bahamas government to decide how are we going to live in shared space. You’re free to go on your own property out of sight and do what you want to do, but you’re not free to come on the public streets and assault the sensibilities of the general public,” Pastor Moss said.
“So, I think the government needs to rethink the whole carnival issue and how they are giving permits to people to conduct themselves in degrading and sexually vulgar manners in the streets, and I just think that’s absolutely wrong.”
Pastor Moss, in a letter to the editor of The Bahama Journal, said, “I read recently that a local group is planning to have a so-called pride parade for homosexuals and their allied groups in 2020. Essentially, such parades are the homosexual equivalent of carnival. Is the government now going to facilitate homosexual immorality on our streets and in our public spaces just as it facilitates the heterosexual immorality of carnival?”
“In a democratic society, I cannot see how one kind of sexual immorality and debauchery can be facilitated in public and not another,” he added.
The outspoken clergyman said he believes the only benefit of the LGBTI’s announcement of Pride Bahamas, by advocates, is to have an opportunity to is to rethink what they are doing with carnival, to make a decision to abandon giving licenses and permits to those who conduct themselves in a manner that is indecent and contrary to the country’s laws of public decency.
He added that he thinks “the government will be making a grave mistake if they grant that to them and continue that together with carnival”.
However, Pastor Moss acknowledges that the LGBTI community is free to do as they want in private, in a democratic society.
“They’re free to propagate what they believe. The constitution gives them that freedom. What they’re not free to do is get into the streets and obstruct the public and assault the sensibilities of the public. That’s what they’re not free to do,” Pastor Moss said.
“I don’t want them, like I don’t want carnival, to assault the sensibilities of myself [and] others who object to that.
“See, the problem with it is, I could see if I were in the minority. If I were in the minority then that’s just the way democracy works. But what we know is the overwhelming majority of Bahamians do not support that kind of vulgarity and nudity in our streets, carnival and the so-called pride.”
During his contribution to the recent budget debate, Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis announced that the government will no longer be cleaning up garbage left over from carnival.
Pastor Moss said this is the right decision and commended Dr. Minnis and his government for such a decision.
