Herrings Obnubilating the Harlequin
By: Dr F E Dias
[Sri Lanka is on the verge of legally embracing sodomy and providing equal rights irrespective of sexual orientation – and such public behaviour and such special rights have been deemed constitutional.]
Caveat lector: This essay make reference to some deviant sexual activities by name, but has no graphic descriptions. The images depict the violation of young children’s innocence and of their bodies.
The Dolawatta Sodomy bill which seeks to repeal sections of the Sri Lankan penal code concerned with gross indecency and carnal intercourse against the order of nature, to sanction public expression of deviant sexual conduct, to provide privilege via the euphemism of “equal rights” to persons identifying into unspecified and fluid sexual orientations, and to endorse embed propagate and enculturate the lies lifestyles and ideologies associated with LGBTQIA+1, has been found constitutional by the Supreme Court2 and awaits enactment.
The influence of supranational organisations in imposing this societal depreciation3, and a description of the implications4 of this bill have been addressed elsewhere, and the health impacts on the practitioners and the consequent burdens on the taxpayer deserve separate treatment. Empathy, support and indeed love, are due to persons struggling with difficulties related to their self-identity, inclinations, and the expressions thereof, whether of a sexual nature or otherwise. However, the deceit employed and the confusion sown by activists, influencers, their sponsors and relevant learned professionals need to be unraveled, so that clarity is attained and the truth may shine through.
“My neighbour jumped in the well” 5
The stated objective of the bill “is that the sexual orientation of a person shall no longer be a punishable offence”, and it was presented to parliament on the alleged grounds that a substantial percentage of the population happen to be LBGTIQ, who also happen to be victims of harassment, that Western and Asian countries have embraced sodomy and - almost in passing, that the UNHRC has directed Sri Lanka to follow suit. Unexpected legal elaboration was provided to explain that “any consensual sexual conduct between two adult persons of the same sex, irrespective of whether it takes place in public or private, shall no longer be an offence”.
Considering that deviant sexual behaviour is prevalent in private and unpoliced, and that “gay” hotels and bars operate unheeded in this country where “pride” activities have been publicly held over two decades6, emphasis is due that one needs to be undeceived that the objective of the impending legislative change is the provision of enhanced rights for antisocial behaviour in public and privileges to proliferate the devastating LGBTQ+ culture. The further scandal particularly upon children through “equal” infiltration of the content of education, of libraries, air-time on radio and share on other media channels are the logical consequences of the provision of privileged equality. The criminalisation of objection to such deculturation on account of this special protection granted is inevitable, and the use of words such as “father” and “mother” will be deemed “homophobic” – as is the case in other nations that slid down this slope to perdition.
When a government with no clothes issues certificates to men that they are women or whatsoever they at that time identify themselves as - when the man in question is in reality a man, and when bishops without backbones remain silent while engagement in a myriad of obscene and unnatural carnal interactions are declared to enhance human dignity, it confesses of a nation in deep crisis - although points may be gathered for the ESG score, as achieved by the ban on nitrogeneous fertiliser, executed in obedience to the same forces that demand the celebration of sodomy.
The beguiling reasoning frequently employed and presented as justification to sanction sodomite and transgender rights will be considered, and then their inconsistency and error laid bare. Some “reasonings” are outright inconsistent paradoxes to be dissected. Also, rhetorically effective and yet simplistic and ambiguous terms which are acceptable in certain contexts in the sense they are employed, are furtively asserted in a different sense in inapplicable contexts7, making it appear contradictory to object to their conclusions - although obviously wrong, and upon analysis incoherent.
Dignity
It is proposed that homosexual practitioners and those who express transgender identities – and these are not mutually exclusive categories, “are human and have dignity”. It is purported that dignity is asserted when legality is declared for any behaviour the individual desires, and that sanctioning and endorsing the right to choose to engage in unnatural carnal behaviour and affirming mental disorder is the essence of dignity8.
While acceptable although not obvious, and while the basis for such a presumption is not explained, it is commendable that the inherent dignity of apparently every human being is found foundational. Human beings ipso facto have dignity, irrespective of their propensities or their actions. The drug addict has dignity as does a blackmailer, and one who attempts suicide privately has as much dignity as a lunatic on the street. And yet, it defies reason to declare that the briber is dignified via the sanctioning of bribery.
Prior to submitting to the emotional illogic associated with sexual behaviour, one could apply more broadly the reasoning that the dignity of the actor justifies uninhibited action - which the state is obliged to legalise, in order to assess whether it holds in principle. Let us apply the learned reasoning regarding dignity, to nudists rather than lesbians, although a lesbian might also be nudist or satanist, and flashing is a prevalent LGBTQ expression. It would follow – as a policy alternative, that the right to choose to conduct oneself publicly in the nude would is due on account of human dignity, and that “any legal impediment” to consensual nudist community public gatherings, or private viewing of child pornography, would be “antithetical to any conception of human dignity.”
Dignity is trumpeted to justify the legal consensual homicide of the elderly, the poor, and the sick. Euthanasia is called “dying with dignity” and the Netherlands and Belgium have legalised infanticide and more lately pedicide. Let the distinction be unmasked between the equal dignity of every human being in all their marvellous and mundane variety, and the difference in objectionability due, to their various gracious - and abominable, acts.
Fundamental Rights
The fundamental or even inalienable rights alluded to when certifying that a girl is a unicorn or a fish, because she either thinks she is or has chosen to identify herself as such, and dignifying consensual and public faecal ingestion in the course of oral-anal activity – one of many acts in the repertoire of homosexuals, will be treated sequentially, and it is worthwhile considering why Sri Lankan human beings with dignity may not possess a hallucinogenic drug - let alone privately and consensually take a trip, since the law prohibits them and indeed deters them with life sentences, while the very reasoning applied to ennoble self-violation in sodomy could be applied to dignifying sections of society having a narcotic orientation.
“Human rights” became a fashionable term with the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights issued after the second World War, at a time when the United Nations Organisation9 had a defensible reason to exist. While the idea of rights can be useful, the rights themselves whether as expressed in the UDHR or the Sri Lankan Constitution are not absolutes - in that they have limitations, particularly when a right applicable to one individual or group infringes on the rights of others. It is evident and indisputable that where there are rights there also exist responsibilities and duties in the exercise of it.
Rights to sodomy, rights to multiple sexual partners prerequisite in bisexual conduct, rights to expression of unlimited sexual orientations, and the already granted right to legal certifications (within 3 to 5 days!) defiant of biology, allegedly derive from the principle of human dignity, and are supposed to be based on other interconnected rights such as those related to equality, privacy, liberty and freedom of expression.
We will next examine the ideas of equality, privacy, and liberty in the context of LGBTQIA+ demands.
Dr Eshan Dias
Essay Notes:
(1) https://gaycenter.org/about/lgbtq/ (accessed 1st June 2023)
(2) http://www.supremecourt.lk/images/documents/sc_sd_13_2023.pdf (accessed 26th May 2023)
(5) Allusion to Sri Lankan folk tale and associated proverb concerning the foolishness of emulating a fool.
(6) https://www.equal-ground.org/a-colourful-joyous-colombo-pride-2022/ (accessed 2nd June 2023)
(7) https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/10/liberty-equality-fraternity.html (31st May 2023)
(8) Navtel Singh Johar v Union of India (2018), the Indian precursor case.