During last night's news, we showed you what the National Aids Commission had to say about its draft piece of legislation called the Equal Opportunities Bill.
The NAC has partnered with the Caribbean Partnership Against HIV & AIDS, the Human Dignity Trust, and the Special Envoy for Women and Children, to create the bill. It's an ambitious piece of draft legislation that seeks to provide protection against discrimination to minority groups with 19 different characteristics such as race, religion, and gender.
The Commission thinks that it's long overdue that the country takes a stand against discrimination. They've organized 8 consecutive days of public consultations all across the country to get public input and support.
The Commission's chair told us that it took them an entire year to carry out all the necessary research, and so, we wondered what role the Attorney General's Ministry played in the process. During our interview with the AG this evening, we asked him to discuss the bill:
We also asked the Attorney General about the initial concern coming from the National Evangelical Association of Belize. They say that anti-discrimination laws implemented in other countries have been used to infringe on freedom of expression by critics of the gay community. The Evangelicals warn that this sort of free speech can be penalized as "hate speech". You'll remember that the LGBT community in Belize would qualify as a protected class of citizens under this draft bill. So, we asked the AG about the possibility fo tipping the scales too far, and here's what he had to say:
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