Frederick Kissoon: Religion Has Saved Guyana Thus Far!

Dear Editor,

I refer to the letter by Frederick Kissoon (KN 21/7/10) captioned “Religion Has Failed Guyana Thus Far”, and would appreciate the
opportunity to rebut! The task here is simple. We would simply provide detail … while Kissoon will not … or cannot … do so! We
should also posit from the outset that it is the misguided tactic of advocating/considering/imposing social policy that is at odds with
the moral, legal, medical and political ethos that has hitherto informed civilization as we know it, that has failed Guyana thus far!

Kissoon joins his mentor Swami Aksharananda in a thinly veiled effort to discredit the IRO’s recent denunciation of Sidewalk Café’s
gay-film “festival”, and also accompanies him in the insipid extravagance of declining to quote any source in the entirety of his
narrative. We have hopefully answered Aksharananda’s analogous defence of the ‘nuance and sophistication’ of homosexuality and
‘gay rights’ in the detailed online article “Aksharananda’s Delusion On Homosexuality: Western Values and Their Usurpation by “Gay
Rights” and “Human Rights” “ (http://www.scribd.com/doc/34519077/Aksharananda%E2%80%99s-Delusion-on-
Homosexuality-Western-Values-and-their-Usurpation-by-%E2%80%9CGay-Rights-Human-Rights%E2%80%9D ).
That Kissoon should follow in this vein illustrates that the IRO’s detractors are scraping the bottom of the barrel on this issue! An
astonishing ignorance, or better an astonishing deception, accompanies these attempts to justify Aksharananda’s worldview.
Kathleen Melonakos is not fooled (http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/narth/medconsequences.html ).

Aksharananda has chosen not to respond (so the article has been copied to the ERC and the IRO in an effort to have him do so).

Kissoon operates from a false premise. He equates the measurable instances of tragedies such as child molestation, incest, violence
against women, prostitution, homicides, police brutalities, divorces … as being evidence of “religion failing Guyana”. The converse
would be true. It is religion that has saved Guyana from worse thus far!

How can we justify this statement? By addressing the facts that Kissoon (and Aksharananda) are committed to ignore!

Kissoon will find that it is … foolish … to say that “… sociological evidence worldwide does not support the contention …” and then not
cite a single sociological source for this bit of profligate nonsense. For an overseas perspective, we should point him to the evidence
in, say, the policy document “Harms of Legalized Gambling”
(http://www.illinoisfamily.org/content/img/f33544/IFI_HarmsofLegalizedGambling_1_.pdf ) where the following
succinct comment appears in the second paragraph:

“…Research studies and government statistics repeatedly show that the arrival or expansion of gambling opportunities
cause significant social problems to the county or localized area where the expansion has occurred. These social problems
include increased bankruptcies, suicides, gambling addictions, divorces, child abuse, child neglect, embezzlement,
domestic violence, theft, overall crime and exploitation of the poor.…”

Kissoon would thereafter be … unwise … to ignore the slew of statistics following the above statement which shows that Guyana can
soon … with its outstanding record for corruption and lax law enforcement … achieve an even more complete model of the same
licentiousness he has consistently rationalized as being politically-driven these past two years. Either that, or Kissoon is actively
engaged in adding “hypocrite” to his mesmerizing array of Russian qualifications!

Locally, we had hopefully addressed Kissoon’s occasional misadventure into intellectual skulduggery when we addressed his less than
scholarly tirade against Kean Gibson’s “Cycle of Racial Oppression in Guyana”. Readers can judge his scholarship, or lack thereof, at
pages 4-8 in the online article “The Case for Scholarship in Kean Gibson’s Book” (http://www.esnips.com/doc/eed7c023-
00d5-4e93-9e51-7a5037aa7768/The-Case-For-Scholarship-In-Kean-Gibsons-Book ). The facts speak for themselves.
Kissoon would again find it … foolish … to wish away these detailed analyses of what he sometimes writes, as if they did not exist.
We are still awaiting his “conference paper” on Kean Gibson … but suspect that it will not soon appear, since much of what he writes
these days completely VALIDATES Dr. Gibson’s treatment in “The Cycle …”.

We had similarly offered at page 4 of “Greed, Genocide … and now ‘Green’: Corruption and Underdevelopment in Guyana”
(http://www.scribd.com/doc/17958657/Greed-Genocide-and-now-Green-Corruption-and-Underdevelopment-in-
Guyana ) that it was now unfortunate that the flak that Kissoon previously levelled against Kean Gibson was now being directed
against him because of the principled stand he has taken on the idea of an “elected dictatorship”. Whereas scholarship and evidence
was brought to bear in establishing that position, Kissoon will find that an off day with lots of time to kill is no substitute for
addressing … with scholarship and evidence … the role that religion has played, and continues to play, in Guyana’s continued
peacefulness! Kinship with Aksharananda … however conceived … is also no substitute for scholarship and evidence!

It bears repeating that Kissoon operates from a false premise when he equates the measurable instances of tragedies such as child
molestation, incest, violence against women, prostitution, homicides, police brutalities, divorces … with “… religion failing Guyana…”.
We repeat that the converse would be true. It is religion that has saved Guyana from worse thus far! He ignores the evidence that
one such vice … gambling … all by itself, and/or with the support of government (and Kissoon) … has consequences that reflect THE
ENTIRE SPECTRUM of the ills he mentions. He therefore “sees no evidence” of the fallout from gambling, then blithely says in his
vice-list above that societal ills (including gambling) are “…reaching depressing proportions …”. You cannot have it both ways, Mr.
Kissoon, much as hypocrites are wont to do! And is Mr. Kissoon trying to say that the religious community did not try to stop …
within constitutional/legal boundaries … what he PROUDLY claims to have supported? We should point Mr. Kissoon to the painful and
sordid commentary in the online article “The Christian protest Against Casino Gambling Presents No Threat to National Security”
(http://www.scribd.com/doc/31055198/The-Christian-Protest-Against-Casino-Gambling-Presents-No-Threat-to-
National-Security ).
Regarding child molestation, he should quote us the relevant statistics for Barbados, then (he is a ‘Doctor’) juxtapose this fact
against the evidence posited in detail by some of his academic counterparts in Baldwin’s 2002 law-review “Child Molestation and the
Homosexual Movement” ( http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/baldwin_pedophilia_homosexuality.pdf ); 14 REGENT U.L.
REV. 267 2002) because it illustrates the imperative that should guide entire national policies:

“Unfortunately, the truth is stranger than fiction. Research confirms that homosexuals molest children at a rate vastly
higher than heterosexuals, and the mainstream homosexual culture commonly promotes sex with children.. Homosexual
leaders repeatedly argue for the freedom to engage in consensual sex with children, and blind surveys reveal a shockingly
high number of homosexuals admit to sexual contact with minors. Indeed, the homosexual community is driving the
worldwide campaign to lower the age of consent”

Kissoon should also READ W.D. Erickson et al, “Behavior Patterns of Child Molesters”, 17 ARCHIVES SEXUAL BEHAV. I, 83
[1988] and the numerous other references on page 2 of 16 in Dr. Baldwin’s law-eview.

If Kissoon’s effort, like B.C. Pires before him (see “A Response to BC Pires on the Ideal Caribbean Person”), was born out of the need
to fill in a slack day with some cheap prose to earn a salary, then he would have fulfilled his mission with this cut-price piece of
garbage on “religion”. Saner citizens, on the other hand, would address detail and scholarship in responding to such mischief.

As to what is driving the incidents of child molestation, incest, violence against women, prostitution, homicides, police brutalities,
and divorces, Kissoon might find more answers (he has offered us none) in the online articles “How Britain is Turning
Christianity Into a Crime” (http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=447 ), “The Case Against PANCAP and
the Decriminalization of Homosexuality” (http://www.scribd.com/doc/17685588/The-Case-Against-PANCAP-and-the-
Decriminalization-of-Homosexuality ), and “Greed, Genocide … and now ‘Green’: Corruption and Underdevelopment in
Guyana”(http://www.scribd.com/doc/17958657/Greed-Genocide-and-now-Green-Corruption-and-Underdevelopment-
in-Guyana ). Finally, atheistic intrepids of the Kissoon-type will no doubt gloat over the conclusions, and implications, of the online
article “Adult Sexual Liberation Leads to Child Sexual Exploitation” (http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WT02G1 )

It is intellectual effrontery, Kissoon, not to deal with the detail! You should put up … or shut up!

Has Atheism ... or Kissoon’s more familiar Communist outlook … done better for Guyana? I would think not!

Yours faithfully
Roger Williams
21st July 2010