Ian Boyne, Contributor
The church is fast being seen by some as a nuisance and a drag on development. Its opposition to the distribution of condoms to sexually active teenagers in school would be cited as the latest manifestation of its dogmatic blindness in the glaring light of today's realities.
Just the week before, as the policy advisory group presented its recommendations to the Government on the vexed issue of abortion, the Church again renewed its vehement opposition to any relaxing of the laws. And that same week Rev. Roy Notice chastised Tourism Minister Ed Bartlett roundly for advocating casino gambling. And then there is the renewed opposition, too, to Sunday horse racing.
Does the Church really have the right to be dictating national policy, just because we are reputedly a 'Christian country'? Do we have what amounts to a state religion? Can we use rational, common-sense reasoning to guide policy action rather than Church dogma? Must we be bullied into silence on these moral issues, fearing that any opposition to the church's views would cast us in the unsavoury lot of infidels, good-for-nothings and Satan's agents?
These are questions which we must face. If we value democratic debate and pluralism, then we have to engage religious people in a dialogue, and that dialogue cannot proceed on the basis of one side unilaterally and arbitrarily deciding that its set of beliefs, presuppositions and faith stance represents the only valid starting point. That position is really a conversation-stopper and is inimical to genuine dialogue.
Revelation
If your philosophical reference point or 'revelation' is precisely what is at issue and needs to be debated, you can't insist that I accept that as the basis of enquiry. The Church, therefore, will have to find common ground with secular society to engage in dialogue. It can't be a dialogue by diktat.
Take the issue of distributing condoms in high schools. While religious people might see this as a grave moral issue and are alarmed at the very thought of it, the Government faces a potential public health crisis. If the young people are engaging in unprotected sex - and right their on campuses - despite all the fiery preaching about damnation for fornication and all the appeals for abstinence - then they are likely to get infected with a sexually transmitted disease. This becomes a problem for the state.
The state has a public health issue on its hand: Does it give in to the religious lobby because of its enormous power and popular appeal and worsen the public health challenge, or does it make the condoms available as a practical means of dealing with the public health crisis on its hands, while strongly supporting a values and attitudes programme which at the same time inculcates abstinence?
My recommendation is that religious people engage the society in a reasoned debate without predicating that conversation on its own dogmas. Find a common ground. There is enough empirical evidence to demonstrate that condom distribution in itself does not stem the incidence of HIV/AIDS. An abundance of evidence in this regard exists from the African experience. The Ugandan experience is particularly instructive.
The state also faces a conundrum with its own legislation. For, according to our laws, minors cannot consent to sex.
So, if our schools begin issuing condoms to 12 to 15 year olds - many of whom are, indeed, having regular sex - then they would be disregarding the very laws of the state. So, by authorising the issuing of condoms to students who are sexually active - however regulated - the state would be disregarding not just 'the laws of God' but its own laws. Either the state changes the laws or shows some implicit respect for its own laws, if it wants citizens to do the same.
Short-term measures
The problem is, we have to adopt some short-term measures, for as Lord Keynes said, "In the long run we are all dead."
We can't wait for all the necessary cultural and moral changes to take place before we deal with the urgent problems which face us. But we must at least know what those longer term issues are if we are not to be continually applying band-aid treatment to the problems.
Let's deal with some facts. Underage kids are going to be having sex whether or not we provide them with condoms. Some, even when the condoms are available through guidance counsellors, will not take them because of the embarrassment of the admission of sex. This cannot be overlooked.
We are still a very religious society and not all teenagers want to advertise their early sexual activity.
It cannot be determined definitively that a larger number of students would actually engage in sex if the condoms were available. Yes, some might refrain from sex for fear of pregnancy and STDs. But because the issue is largely one of self-control and mastery over sexual impulses, if the young person is lacking in self-control, the non-availability of a condom is not going to stop that person from engaging in sex. So there is no large number of persons who are going to be 'encouraged' to have sex if the condoms are available, as the Christians like to argue.
Get this into your head - when people want to have sex, they throw rational thinking and rational calculation down the tube. This is a very basic and primal impulse.
But, nor should we overstate the case, as Emily Crooks has been doing, by saying naively that when you give your kids condoms you are not really authorising them to have sex and they could well be walking around with those condoms for a long time without using them. I am not saying they are going to find some use for them just because they have them - as in 'have condom, and must have sex.' (Though having the condoms does facilitate sexual activity more easily). But don't believe that they would be seeing them as souvenirs either!
Abstinence
If you as a parent preach abstinence and insist on it, then you should make no provision for its violation. Some would say that love demands that you do that. Today, your son having sex without a condom does not just mean he might bring a child into the world whom he cannot afford to support and who will be a drain on the family budget: It could mean his own life will be taken out of the world!
Shouldn't love override our own personal religious convictions? some ask. The problem with the Church in Jamaica is that it has failed miserably to mount an intellectual assault on secular humanistic philosophy. The Church's reaction to issues has been mainly visceral and reflexive. It has failed to point out to this secularist, not Christian, society that because it has so fed the notion that material advancement and pleasure are what life is about; because our everyday philosophy is really money over morality, and because we have espoused the Supremacy of Desire ('Obey your thirst') and have been pushing an hedonistic, atomistic philosophy, we can't but reap the whirlwind of high levels of teenage pregnancy, carnal abuse, rape, HIV/AIDS, sexual promiscuity and family break-ups.
If it feels good, do it. If the thought comes to your mind and it is titillating and alluring, forget about the prudish notion of self-control, 'just do it'. This is our philosophy promoted in our newspapers, electronic media, in soca, rhythm and blues, and pop and, more crudely, dancehall. It is not just a downtown philosophy. Uptown and downtown are united philosophically. The big man and the small man both see life as the acquisition of money, status and power.
So why be surprised when their children see no reason to show constraint when they want to have sex, take drugs or vent their anger in school? We are reaping what we have sown. Church people can easily show that this Western nihilistic philosophy is not even the necessary by-product of a secularist or atheistic philosophy. You can be an atheist and believe in objective morality, even though philosophically I believe it is hard for the atheist to justify that in a random and spontaneous universe.
Atheists
But there are atheists who believe in values and morality. Two excellent books which show an atheistic case for morality is Erik Wallenberg's Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe and Tara Smith's Viable Values: A Study of Life as the Root of Morality. (Both are professors of philosophy).
The ancient philosophers, some of whom were atheists and agnostics, believed strongly in a virtuous life, and even Epicurus, founder of Epicureanism who taught that pleasure was the essence of life, did not define pleasure in a purely sensual and hedonistic sense.
Today, people see life purely in terms of sensory gratification. They don't think about morality. The country's most street-smart columnist, Mark Wignall, had a fascinating column on Thursday about 'Naive women and the wolves,' in which he writes about how easily available sex is when you have money.
"There are truckloads of beautiful women living in the ghettos who are auctioning themselves to the highest bidder every day," Wignall, who knows these things, says.
But if your society only gives you 'rating' if you can bling, and if you are not taught that it is better to suffer and do without than to do certain things for money, what else can you expect? We scoff at morality and church people (and Mark Wignall himself is one of the chief offenders in this regard), yet we are reaping the whirlwind from neglecting certain values.
Children being taken out to plant ganja fields; prostitution rings being established in schools; 10-year-old girls giving oral sex; 'no-panty' days in the buses; increasing lesbianism in the girls' schools and high levels of incest are all part of the consequences of our neglect of morality and our obsession with materialistic values and sensual gratification.
Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com
