By Hilary White
REWA, Fiji, November 10, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Methodist Church of Fiji, which claims about a quarter of Fiji’s citizens as members, was refused permission to hold a march to protest incursions of the homosexual political machine into Fiji’s traditionally Christian society. The march was to have been a protest against a court ruling that upheld, on constitutional grounds, an appeal by an Australian tourist and a Fiji man against a gay sex conviction. The prohibited march was to have been the second staged by the church, the first having taken place in in Nausori earlier this year.
Fiji is an independent state in which homosexual acts are outlawed and the majority of people are Christians. Nevertheless, the international movement to legitimize homosexuality and sexual license has made inroads with foreign activist groups pushing for same-sex “marriage”.
GayNZ.com, called the Methodist Christians of Fiji, “primitive,”“virulently homophobic” and a product of “colonialism.” Despite such hostility towards them, it was the Methodists, simply upholding traditional Christian morality, who were accused of “discrimination and hate” when they proposed to hold the march.
In a story that will sound familiar to Canadians Christians who have been silenced by Human Rights Tribunals, the order to stop the march seems to have come from the Fiji Human Rights Commission. The head of the Commission, Dr Shaista Shameem, warned that the church could face prosecution if it insisted on a second march against homosexuality.
General-Secretary of the Fiji Methodist Church says his members’ rights have not been recognised. Reverend Tuikilakila Waqairatu said that the march was to be peaceful, and that the constitutional rights to freedom of speech are at stake. “Every person has the right to equality before the law and a person must not be unfairly discriminated against on the grounds of his or her opinion or belief except to the extent that those opinions or beliefs involve harm to others,” he said.
Support for the march was strong and police had anticipated crowd numbers in the thousands.
Read Previous LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Prime Minister says Fiji’s Sodomy Law Reflects Biblical Truth
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/apr/05041406.html