NAC Chair Says Catholic Church’s Release on E.O.B. is a Tragedy

Laura Tucker-Longsworth

Tucker-Longsworth accepts that the Bill needs tweaking and is willing to work with partners, but that does not include NEAB.  She says that NEAB is hell-bent in removing the LGBT community as one of the groups that the Bill seeks to protect.  Tucker-Longsworth also reacted to the release from the Roman Catholic Church. The church says that it cannot support the Bill because it feels that it was rushed. It says that it would give unparallel power to the commission and tribunal and its parental rights in danger.  Tucker-Longsworth has a different view.

Laura Tucker-Longsworth, Chair, National Aids Commission

“I want to address the issue of rushed. That is the message tht went to cabinet but in their hands Cabinet knew that was not true because of the extensive consultations that were carried out. They have an entire list of those consultations. The Catholic Church or the Council of Churches or whoever wrote that release. I haven’t seen the release. I was told that the release does not sound like it was written by the bishop. And that is coming from one of their own. I was told that. But speaking to a colleague that is what I was told. We have no problem sitting down and going line by line. But it is a strategy to put out a release that even the Pope, in 2013 the Pope addressed this that we should be kinder. So on one hand they are saying they are kinder but on the other hand they are preventing the protection that will allow us to be kinder to our people. What is that about? That needs attention.”