The great porn debate
By NOELLE NICOLLS
Tribune Features Editor
nnicolls@tribunemedia.net
Nassau, The Bahamas
CONSTITUTIONAL watchdogs, the Bahamas Christian Council (BCC), are up to their old tricks again. Against the backdrop of the Bahamas constitution, they are making outlandish claims in defence of public morality.
The BCC took great interest in reviewing channels 874 to 895 from service provider Cable Bahamas, outlining in detail the scope and nature of the pornographic material available to Bahamian viewers. The council itemised a sampling of 12 pornographic movie offerings, with titles and descriptions, including: Real Big Bouncing Boobs, the MILF Café, Latin All Stars and Best BJ Contest. In the latter instance, the report stated that Cable Bahamas provided no description. Evidently, it found that the title evidently was sufficient.
I found the sample size of the Christian council's pornographic survey quite amusing. I questioned whether they needed to itemise 12 pornographic movies to establish a trend and make their point? I also found it amusing that these channels were viewed on Christmas Day around 3pm in the home of an elderly woman, who apparently was unknowledgeable about parental controls. When the story broke, the BCC was quick to clarify, none of its clergymen actually celebrated Jesus' birth with a pornographic marathon. The clergymen only read the titles and descriptions. They watched no movies.
Either way, with its latest failed attempt to contribute constructively to the national debate, the Bahamas Christian Council has revealed once again just how comical and irrelevant it is. On the heels of former Bishop Randy Fraser's conviction for the perverse crime of having unlawful sex with a minor, surely the Christian Council must realise by now that it has a serious credibility problem. I do not mean to defend the moral righteousness of pornography, but surely such an indulgence is amongst the least of our national concerns. The BCC just can't seem to get its priorities right.
"Experiences in the Bahamas and abroad have already shown us that not all adults who view pornographic content are responsible enough or care enough to utilize set top box parental controls or only do so when their children are absent or asleep. Pornography is powerfully addictive and enslaving because it perverts a pleasurable, God-given appetite," states the BCC's report.
Needless to say, the BCC is calling for a complete ban on pornographic content. Short of that, it accuses Cable Bahamas and URCA of facilitating the nation's moral decay. Over time, the BCC predicts "more Bahamians will intentionally and accidentally indulge in these pornographic offerings to their and the society's detriment." How does someone accidentally indulge in viewing pornographic content?
The truth is the BCC's public pornographic dissent was predictable. Considering their history of opposing everything from Reggae legend Bob Marley to Dancehall phenomenon Movado to Blockbuster's Brokeback Mountain and, God forbid, Harry Potter, it was to be expected.
What I found presumptuous about the BCC's response was their interpretation of the Bahamian constitution, particularly as it relates to the right to freedom of expression. The BCC attempted to contrast the constitutional context between the United States of America and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, making the audacious suggestion that the constitutional reality in the Bahamas is such that the government can regulate the airwaves as it sees fit in the interest of public morality without any legitimate grounds for a challenge by the Bahamian people, unlike Americans, who have the first amendment to draw on.
"As an independent, sovereign nation, God has providentially blessed us with an excellent constitution that allows for an orderly, democratic society. In this regard, it should be noted that the United States has a different constitutional context than we do in the Bahamas and the freedoms that producers and consumers of pornographic, violent, profane and other objectionable broadcast (content) rightly or wrongly claim from their constitution are expressly curtailed in ours," states the BCC's report.
The BCC refers to section 23 of the Bahamas constitution as evidence, which expresses every Bahamian's right to enjoy freedom of expression without hindrance, except by way of individual consent or where the contravention of such a right is "reasonably required (by the state) in the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or public health", among other like exceptions.
Despite the BCC's suggestion otherwise, the Bahamian government is not exceptional in this way, and the Bahamas constitution grants the government no exceptional authority or absolute power to curtail the right to freedom of expression. God's providential blessing for the Bahamas is nothing but a figment of the Christian Council's imagination.
I know of no government in the world, including that of the United States of America, that grants its citizens absolute freedoms. Every fundamental right is subject to the rights of the greater good. And while laws passed by a government are assumed to be in the public's interest, every Bahamian has a right to challenge the government based on any perceived abuse of power, and only the highest court has the final say as to whether such a claim is legitimate. So the council's suggestion that the Bahamas government by way of URCA has some exceptional constitutional context to curtail the freedom of its citizens on the basis of public morality is completely bogus.
The Christian Council's constitutional pep talk may have been innocent but it is not harmless. Governments, most notoriously in the USA, are famous for over reaching their power in the interest of the public good, make no mistake. So neither URCA nor the government should hitch their position on the council's interpretation of the Bahamas' constitutional reality.
When it comes to the constitution, the BCC always seems to come up short. Just a few years ago, in an interview with The Tribune, Sir Arthur Foulkes and former Member of Parliament George Smith, both delegates to the 1972 constitutional conference in London, reminded the church that it has no constitutional power to be moral watchdog, although it loves to assume the role as though decreed in a constitutional mandate. The church would argue no less that their mandate comes from God. I have more faith in God than that.
At that time, Sir Arthur said that the reference to Christian values in the preamble to the constitution was intended to recognise the Bahamas' Christian heritage, not to prejudice one religion over another, and not to grant the church constitutional authority.
Furthermore, Sir Arthur said, at the time referring to music that promotes crime and violence, that he would not grant the power to regulate the airwaves to the church.
So not only does the church have no constitutional power to be a moral watchdog, but it has no moral legitimacy either. For all of its religiosity, the Bahamas is a spiritually impoverished nation, as honest Bahamians would admit. When it comes to an abundance of churches, we have one of the highest per capita rates in the world. And yet, what sustainable benefit has it brought us?
Bahamians are so unconnected to God it is a crying shame. And as guardians of the spiritual wellness of the Bahamian people, the church has failed. With leaders like the BCC, who would be surprised?
If the BCC based its approach on the cultural reality of the Bahamas instead of the constitutional reality, it may have been able to construct a more credible argument. The same goes for other leaders, generally speaking. Their messages are disconnected from the cultural reality and they are not fooling anyone.
Take for example the BCC's claim that in the Bahamas what we hold sacred is "sexual conduct expressed within the boundaries of marriage between one man and one woman". Where is the culture to support that claim? In the Bahamas, we value sweet-hearting. It is the order of the day.
And to the contrary, traditional marriage perhaps never even was the standard bearer. What's left of the institution seems to be dying, along with all of the customs that were once the sole right of those inside the institution. The Bahamas, for example, ranks high amongst the top for number of population born out of wedlock.
In the Bahamas, sex, even within a monogamous, heterosexual relationship, is quite normal outside the context of marriage. This and any number of other cultural realities flies in the face of everything that church leaders and their supporters claim we are as a nation.
Back in the day, pornography was accessed by children behind the image of snow on a static-fill satellite television. Today, Bahamian children need not go so far to be witness to pornographic content. It is right inside their homes and communities.
The challenge the church has today, and will continue to have into the future, is that it is trying to change culture by preaching morality. It does not work that way. Bahamians are no longer cultural virgins.
The draft code states in its underlying principles that broadcasting content should be "consistent with the standards of good taste and decency which are generally prevalent and accepted in Bahamian society". It states that "licensees shall seek to avoid the broadcast of content which would be considered by the general public in The Bahamas to be harmful, abusive, offensive, discriminatory or otherwise contrary to the standards of taste and decency which generally obtain in Bahamian society".
Herein lies the problem. Forget the television, the Internet and the radio. Anyone who has stepped outside of their house in the Bahamas need only go about two steps to see that our cultural reality is completely out of sync with our cultural vision.
The vision of the Bahamas being a nation that respects and upholds Christian values simply does not match up with the reality. And church leaders, and the like, who portray this vision as a reality will continue to be out of tune with the people. They are trying to portray certain cultural norms - gambling, violent and sexually explicit behaviour, profanity and the like - as deviant when they are not, in the eyes of the society. They are quite normalised.
For better or worse, our accepted standards of taste and decency have sunk to new lows. And we need not reach for the perceived dregs of society to identify examples. The level of incivility amongst so-called ordinary Bahamians going about their day-to-day business would put American television to shame.
The thing is you do not change culture by preaching it away. And we will not restore a civil society by banning, blocking, and censoring content. To achieve its cultural vision, the Bahamas needs affirmative action to socialise its citizens. Forget about the American concept of affirmative action. I am talking about asserting the truth of who and what we are, and taking positive action towards living from our highest selves. The BCC and all of its like-minded allies need to stop preaching spiritual values and start living them.
January 16, 2012
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