Patrick Menzies and Church Leaders Back in Belmopan for Protest
This morning, the Hispanic arm of the Evangelical Church, led by Patrick Menzies, was back on Independence Hill where they marched against government’s decision not to appeal the Supreme Court ruling on Section Fifty-three. While Prime Minister Barrow and members of Cabinet were in session for the better part of the morning, Menzies and his supporters paraded to the Sir Edney Cain Building where a letter was to be delivered to the PM. We were told later today that the letter demanding that government appeal the Chief Justice’s decision never made it past the security desk. Menzies says that this morning’s protest was the last stance taken by the Alliance for the Defense of the Natural Family. Their position remains firm, no to Section Fifty-three and the CJ’s interpretation of sex.
Patrick Menzies, Protest Organizer
“You don’t have to be a part of the church to be a part of the Alliance for the Defense of the Natural Family. We are not an alliance only have churches, we have many folks that are not even in church that joined with us. It is not about red and blue so we call on Belizeans nationwide not to join the march tomorrow for the blue against the red. We don’t participate in those things. We are not out here in a partisan view. We are out here in defense of the family; and that’s why we came and we know that people in the cabinet, we want them to do know and understand that there are folks in the cabinet that do not go with the LGBT agenda. We respect them and we ask them to put their pants the way they should, stand up and be men or women if they are to stand up for the people of Belize and say P.M., enough is enough. If the president of the preistas in Mexico launched and approved the gay marriage, but his party rejected it, he had to back off. We are calling on the U.D.P. executive, we are calling on the U.D.P. party that they will tell their P.M. back off or it is over. We are not here to replace the red with the opportunistic blue. We are not. We know the game and that’s why we are here.”
Patrick Menzies
Isani Cayetano
“But how can you make that demand when truthfully speaking, there are members of his executive and members of his inner circle who are indeed gays and lesbians? Wouldn’t that be contradictory?”
Patrick Menzies
“How would it be contradictory? Rewind your tape; I didn’t say all, I said there are members. If I made a mistake, somebody correct me. The P.M. said that, not me. The P.M. was clear; not everybody in his cabinet agrees with what is going on so we are calling on those that do not agree with the P.M. to stand up. And the ones with the LGBT can take a boat and go to the UN or somewhere else. The reality is that Belize has always had LGBT members; we’ve never fought with them or discussed anything with them. I have no qualms with Orozco; Orozco didn’t bring this upon us. The UN, the EU and the U.S. brought this upon us.”
Isani Cayetano
“Why invert the Belizean flag” What’s the symbolism behind that?”
Patrick Menzies
“Thank you so much for asking. Belizeans, I think it is title ten of the U.S. law says that whenever the nation is in distress, the flag is flown upside down. Many nations understand that; I am a military man…I respect the flag. I watch Belizeans out here stand while the B.D.F. and our police drag the flag on the ground during the twenty-first September. It makes me cringe; if you were in the U.S., you’d be in trouble or any other nation. The Belize flag upside down means it’s our nation in distress. A boat that’s out there flying a flag inverts the flag and if you are going nearby you know that the people are in trouble. That is why we inverted the Belize flag. Let me be clear, we did not invert the Belize flag. And I believe the CJ is singing for his supper. I believe that he is liberal, but I do not blame the CJ of his ruling. Twenty-one September 2013, P.M. ordered that ruling. Read P.M.’s order to the CJ on that day and the P.M. lied at his press conference—and I said so—he lied at that conference saying that it had to deal with other issues. I had it in my hand; it’s not other issuers. The real deal is he was talking about this issue. And we are making it clear; Belize is not a nation that should subject itself to a homosexual agenda that has been losing ground in Latin America in the last three months like crazy.”
