And from the UDP's endless internal bickering to another battle that is as old as the Bible. This one is over the Tenth September - and the deathless push and pull between parade and prayer, jump-up and Jesus.
This year the Tenth falls on a Sunday and the Council of Churches says the state must keep holy the sabbath and parade on some other day. The churches said in a release that they were not properly consulted. But today the Minister said that they waited until it was too late to voice this issue.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Culture
"I'll make two points about that, one of course is that the, I don't mean to be critical, but we often talk about respect and consultation with the Council of Churches, we have an open door policy with them, they did not speak to us, they did not come to the commission and say we have this concern, they put out a release, I got the release from the media, so you know, I think that's troubling. The other point is that, as everyone knows, the citizens parade on the tenth is really organized and planned by the Loyal Patriotic - I hope I get the name right - Loyal Patriotic Order of the Baymen, that's a group that's been around for many years so they plan and organize the tenth, we simply put it our calendar of events, the parade, they plan the parade, and they have insisted on maintaining the integrity of the tenth, that's something important for them, so I can report to you that we consulted with them again today and their position is that they want to proceed with the citizens parade on the tenth despite the fact that they have heard and listened to and respect the concerns of the church, and we do as well, the National Celebrations Commission, we understand the position of the church but we believe the parade as the patriotic group has said can be done, as they do every year, in a very respectful celebratory manner that will not interfere at all with church services."
Courtney Menzies:
"Do you feel it's a little unreasonable of them to make such a request?"
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Culture
"Yeah, in my view, it's- I understand, as I've said, where they're coming from, they have their own interests to protect but in my view it's a little unreasonable especially coming so late in the calendar, we have been planning this event for many months, the police have a plan in place for over a month, logistics in terms of who will work on that day, these sorts of things, so it's very unreasonable to come so late and as I've said before, the Council of Churches, we have a Minister of Religious Affairs, I asked him if the Council of Churches had reached out to him, he said no, they did not reach out to me as the chairman of the National Celebrations Commission, they simply put out a release when they know that we are accessible and available to them if they wanted to discuss this matter."
