Opposition Member of Parliament, Odessa Primus has rushed to the defence of her Leader, Azruddin Mohamed who faced backlash over comments he made regarding the presence of Lesbians and Bisexuals in Masjids.
During a press conference today, Mohamed, the We Invest In Nationhood (WIN) Leader was noticeably absent.
Primus took the opportunity to address the matter after Mohamed found himself in hot water for the now-widely circulated comments he made at a Berbice Mosque.
Primus noted that while some sections of society have labelled Mohamed’s comments as a flagrant attack on human rights, a person’s religious belief should also be considered for such protection.
“I don’t need to agree with your religion. I don’t need to subscribe to your religion. But I need to respect the fact that this is how the Muslims feel or sections of the Muslim society feels and we have to respect that.
I can understand persons in the gay community being offended and perhaps because they see it as discrimination but across society if we are to take discrimination for what it is, we discriminate all of the time,” Primus said.
She turned her attention to the persons gathered at the Press Conference and said that because they were selected to be there, one can claim that there is some form of discrimination present.
“We just have to accept that this is what it is,” Primus declared.
The Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Susan Rodrigues, in a statement following the video going viral, flayed Mohamed for making those disparaging comments. In her Facebook post, the Minister said that she is “a proud gay person” who is part of a government that governs for all.
But Primus took aim at Rodrigues, pointing that the Minister has not done anything to support the LGBTQIA+ community.
“For the first time ever, at least publicly I’ve seen, Minister Rodrigues has never said she’s a gay person. We know that she’s in a relationship with a woman. She’s posting pictures and so on. And I found it quite interesting that this opportunity is being used to suddenly decide that you are a proud gay person,” Primus said.
She added that less than a week ago, a gay man was attacked on a stage with bottles and the ministers speaking out now were silent then.
“I didn’t see proud Susan…There was no uproar from all of these ministers including [The Home Affairs Minister] Oneidge who has responsibility for things like security. Where was that outrage?
Primus said that the “outrage” is now being done selectively because the person who made the comment is the Leader of the Opposition.
“Because it involves the leader of the opposition and you as a party have a personal problem with him, then you use the gay community and their rights and so on to now suddenly have a voice. If we are going to be serious about human rights and we are going to be serious about the gay community, then let’s do that. Don’t let’s just come out here to score cheap political points,” the MP noted.
