For the past few months, Christian homophobes who have been at the forefront the campaign against what they call the LGBT agenda have been saying that UNIBAM's constitutional challenge is really a foreign agenda being forced on the Belizean Society.
They say that Gay Rights Activist Caleb Orozco is being funded, controlled and or directed by international interests who are simply trying to topple Belize's sodomy laws as part of a worldwide campaign to mainstream gay lifestyles.
Well, today, UNIBAM and one of its supporting agencies fired back when the US NGO known as the Southern Poverty Law Center released a report called "DANGEROUS LIAISONS: The American Religious Right & the Criminalization of Homosexuality in Belize".
In this report, the SPLC is claiming that the local religious groups like Belize Action who've taken the forefront are being funded and directed by US religious conservative groups with millions of dollars for an annual budget.
Via a telephone a press conference today, the director of SPLC announced to international media about the significance of the report. 7News listened in, and we have an excerpt of that launching. Here's how that presentation went:
Heidi Beirich - Director, Southern Poverty Law Center
"The report in short lays out several things, includes the section of the situation in Belize - the involvement of an American anti-groups there, have profile for 6 US groups including the ADF that are working for furthering criminalization internationally and has a timeline of these activities. There's also a Q & A with Caleb at his work and the threats he's faced. So there's one big take away that we're hoping from this research and similar researches have been done by other American groups on criminalization in other countries. We need to call out these American groups from being involved in this kind of stuff. There is surely can't be a bigger manifestation of hating the sinner as focused on the families than bringing the full wave of criminal lock down on someone for their personal sexual activities. It's uncivilized, it can't possibly be Christian - as Rick Warren now says and other major religious figure such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu made clear. Clearly homophobia has been a problem in Belize - that's not a question here - but the involvement of these American groups is adding fuel to the fire in that country and violence against the LGBT community in Belize and other places where American groups have injected themselves is on the rise according to the UN and other human rights organizations. To inject these defamatory ideas in a country like Belize where anti-LGBT policy is so deep that if you're gay you cannot enter the country - you'll be banned. You can be thrown in jail for practicing same sex is beyond irresponsible - we can thank groups such as the ADF for making a bad situation much much worse. Caleb Orozco along with the other organizations and lawyers have brought this section 53 case can attest to the violence as he himself has been subjected to it but won't speak of it. In many ways maybe we shouldn't be so surprised for groups like ADF for engaging in these activities, after all they're basically losing the battle against LGBT rights. In the United States witnessed the recent Prop8 case where the ADF was actually involved in defending Prop8 and lost. The spread of gay marriage and all of these things are leading such groups to find themselves on the wrong side of history and it wasn't too long ago that the ADF and certain other groups we discussed in our report were arguing forcibly in front of the Supreme Court here that the end of sodomy laws would be destructive to the United States and its culture. As things are turning against their views and their matters here - they are increasingly taking their battle abroad and that is what Belize represents. In that effort they're making some really unsavory alliances - by that I mean anti-LGBT groups in the US are allying themselves with the groups in governments in other countries such as Saudi Arabia to push anti-LGBT initiatives in international bodies. What's ironic about this is that many of these countries actively prosecute Christians but that doesn't seem to bother the ADF for example CFAM and their battle against what they call the homosexual agenda. They are building legal teams on the international level."
We reached Pastor Scott Stirm, tonight who says he's going to review the report and he will file a lawsuit on it for nay inconsistencies. He denied that there is any foreign agenda and disclaimed any ties to any international right wing religious groups.
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