Regarding Constitutional Bill No.2 (dealing with the granting of citizenship to spouses of Bahamian women) as I have stated over and again, I do not believe in any greater rights for males as compared with females and I do not believe that any Bahamian - male or female - should be able to confer an entitlement to citizenship on his or her spouse simply by the act of marriage. All of our spouses should be automatically entitled to reside and work in The Bahamas and all of our children should be citizens from the moment of birth. But our spouses should not be entitled to citizenship. They should be required to apply and should even be given an expedited process of application as compared to non-spouses. And we should grant citizenship to all spouses after a reasonable time and after we are certain of a stable marriage and a commitment by those spouses to the building of our country. That is what the United States and most western countries do. That is what we should do. I do not believe in greater rights for men than for women. But I do not believe in compounding an obvious error in our constitution under the guise of gender equality. All foreign spouses who have already acquired citizenship should, of course, keep it. But going forward male and female spouse should apply. As I said they should have an automatic right to reside and to work and all children of the marriage should automatically be Bahamians, but the spouses should have to apply. That is my view. I am not against a contest of ideas. But it does no good to try to misrepresent my views.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 21:37:07 +0000