Humphrey advises Barbadians to respect practices of other religions

Minister of Maritime Affairs and Blue Economy Kirk Humphrey is encouraging Barbadians to respect the practices of different religions.

He took the stance at yesterday afternoon’s sitting of the Lower House during the debate on the Sacramental Cannabis Bill, 2019.

“If [marijuana] is a fundamental part of a religion, we cannot say that we are a mature enough society to accept the religion, but we do not accept that part of the religion. It is a hypocrisy and I will not subject myself to that hypocrisy!” he asserted.

The MP for St. Michael South insisted in the same way that Christians, Muslims, Hindi and others were allowed to practice their own religion freely, so too must Rastafarians.

“This is not a fly-by-night idea. This is nothing that we are discussing because we want to encourage, as the critics may say, other people to go and do it. This is being discussed because this is a fundamental component to the faith,” he stressed.

He further claimed that those who opposed to the legislation were the ones who were allowed to practice their own religion freely.

Within his presentation, Humphrey tried to allay fears of how widespread the use of marijuana would be after the legislation was passed.

“Just because we offer it for sacrament does not mean that everybody will be offering marijuana to everybody else. It does not work so. Alcohol is available all over the place and I would like to think a rational human being who is supposed to have some form of decency will not be offering alcohol to every child he sees on the streets, because even though it is legal, it is still wrong to give it to a child. And I would like to believe that if we offer marijuana for sacrament that it does not mean that people lose grasp of their other senses,” he added. (JMB)