Free National Movement (FNM) Loretta Butler-Turner said yesterday that, although it would be "tempting" to "pay back" the government for failing to abide by the results of the January 2013 gambling referendum, Bahamians should not confuse that with the upcoming referendum on gender equality.
"Some wish to pay back this government for refusing to abide by the results of the gaming referendum, which the prime minister so solemnly promised," she said in the House of Assembly.
"It might be tempting, but it would be wrong.
"The two issues are separate. More importantly, this referendum is about fairness and making our sisters and our daughters full fellow citizens along with our brothers and our sons.
"This referendum should not be about pettiness and payback. The time to pay back is not now. This is not the time for that. That time will come."
Christian Council President Rev Dr. Ranford Patterson has said that he will not support the constitutional referendum.
Butler-Turner said, though, that if the referendum fails, it will be because of how the Christie administration has poisoned the process over the years.
"In more recent times, the side opposite, under the current prime minister, put politics ahead of justice, fairness and equality," she said.
"It is sad that the party which endlessly boasts of its contributions to the struggle for majority rule campaigned against full equality for women in 2002, which was always a major plank in the struggle for majority rule as far back as the 1960s.
"This is akin to being against the right of women to vote.
"If we are to be equals in our land, we must share all of the same rights, bar none. There should be no half measures and half stepping."
In 2002, the Ingraham administration brought a similar referendum forward. At the time, then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham declared that whoever won the vote would win the upcoming election. While then Opposition Leader Perry Christie and the PLP voted in favor of the proposed constitutional amendments in the House, the party openly campaigned against the changes during the lead-up to the referendum -- which was defeated.
Butler-Turner said the FNM often hears the "lame excuse from the side opposite that they voted against equality because of the process".
"A similar argument was used by members of Congress in the U.S. who voted against the emancipation proclamation, which freed millions from slavery," she said.
"The same argument was used in South Africa by some who wanted the continuation of minority rule and apartheid.
"The process excuse cannot - should not -- be used to justify failure to liberate any class of people from bondage or inequality.
"What kind of process does a slave need before his master stops whipping him?
"This talk of process was always a smoke screen by the side opposite to mask their naked political opportunism."
She said the promise of majority rule does not yet exist for Bahamian women.
"We have unfinished business," she said.
"Though we now enjoy full racial equality, full equality is still not here for Bahamian women."
She also chastised Tall Pines MP Leslie Miller over comments he made concerning one of the proposed bills.
"I hear some voices, way behind the times, who are opposed to full equality," she said.
"They claim to love women. Yet those claims ring hollow.
"It is not surprising that those who feel that they have a right to beat up and abuse women want to deny women their full constitutional rights.
"To demonstrate full love and respect for women is to believe that they are fully and equally fellow citizens."

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