Proponents of National Heroes Month who are flying high after the prime minister’s recent declaration that more will be done to honour the country’s heroes may now be facing a new battle from an organisation wanting to preserve the month of October as Discovery Month.

The Bahamas In Prophecy Association is a multidenominational organisation headed by Pastor Mick Seymour.

The organisation has come forward to oppose consideration of eliminating the October 12 Discovery Day observances and replacing it with a newly created National Heroes Day.

Among the reasons it gives for its opposition to the proposed change is the fact that the organisation believes it will destroy a very lucrative market that the island of San Salvador currently enjoys as the landing spot of Christopher Columbus.

“This organisation finds it strange that the government is celebrating Discovery Day on the island of San Salvador from October 10 to October 13 and at the same time is moving forward with their plans to change Discovery Day to National Heroes day in the rest of The Bahamas,” the organisation said in a statement Tuesday.

“While we support the celebrations we condemn the double standard. If Discovery day is celebrated by the government in one island it should be celebrated in all of the islands. When Columbus landed in San Salvador, he landed in The Bahamas.”

The group also opposes any attempts to replace the Discovery Day observances with National Heroes Day because it argues that there is no empirical data indicating that any of the subjects deemed heroes had any symbolic ties to the month of October.

The association said while it does not oppose the creation of a month set aside to honour the country’s national heroes, it does not believe that October should be the month chosen.

“When the question is asked why our national heroes are being honored in October and the question is asked, what exactly they did in the month of October, what would be the answer to the next generation of Bahamians – a lie,” the statement said.

“This is not the time of year to be talking about our national heroes but the discovery of these islands. The nation should be getting ready to celebrate the rediscovery of the new world which began with the rediscovery of these islands by Christopher Columbus in Oct 1492 and rightly so.”

Last week Prime Minister Perry Christie declared October National History Month.

At the time, the prime minister said that the government was committed to finding an appropriate place for a heroes park.