by Larry Smith
My reading list recently has included two personal memoirs by individuals connected to the Bahamas.
Hermione Llewellyn was born to a wealthy Welsh family, which her father bankrupted by gambling when she was only 13. Leaving home in 1930, she got a job selling appliances, and later became a typist.
In 1937, she went to Australia to work as a secretary in the colonial administration (must not have been many typists in Oz back then), and met Daniel Knox, the 6th Earl of Ranfurly, who was an aide to the governor-general. They married two years later.
The Ranfurlys spent most of the Second World War in the Middle East and North Africa, where Dan - an officer in the 7th Armoured Division - was a prisoner of war for three years. In October 1953 he was appointed governor of the Bahamas for three years - on the aristocratic dole.
Continue reading "Life in the Bahamas in the 1950s—Two Memoirs" »
We Are Not a Christian Nation Constitutionally
by Simon
The level of ignorance about our constitution is widespread and disturbing. The ignorance is particularly alarming on the part of those who pretend to know about such matters, including certain pastors who repeatedly demonstrate a stunning ignorance of constitutional issues as well as certain inveterate writers of letters to the editor, not to mention certain uninformed radio talk show hosts.
Despite such wilful ignorance, we are constitutionally a secular state. The preamble to the constitution has a Christian reference. But the preamble has no legal force and is not dispositive in deciding constitutional questions.
Chapter I Article 1 of the constitution does have legal force. It notes: “The Commonwealth of the Bahamas shall be a sovereign democratic State.” Not a theocracy, not a Christian state, but a democracy.
Ours is a secular state with a constitution dedicated to protecting certain fundamental rights and freedoms, not a theocratic state in which the doctrines of any religion or denomination reign supreme in adjudicating constitutional matters.
The constitution does not protect or advance any notion of Christendom, in which Christianity is the state religion, nor does it grant any religion the right to force its doctrines or force its will on other citizens.
Continue reading "We Are Not a Christian Nation Constitutionally " »
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