THE FORT STREET DECLARATION

NOW IT IS DECLARED that the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a faithful union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion, being foundational principles of justice and the common good, must under every circumstance be defended and promoted in the Cayman Islands. We accordingly call upon all officials in our country, elected and appointed, to protect and serve every member of our society, including the most marginalised, voiceless and vulnerable among us.

WE STAND RESOLUTELY against the corrupt and degrading notion that it can somehow be in the best interests of women to submit to the deliberate killing of their unborn children. We affirm that the just, humane and Christian answer to problem pregnancies is for all of us to love and care for both mother and child. We defend and speak for the unborn, the disabled and the dependent. We must be willing to defend, even at risk and cost to ourselves and our institutions, the lives of our brothers and sisters at every stage of development and in every condition.

Wherever such activities occur throughout the world, we stand against the loss of the sense of the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life that drives: the abortion industry and the movements for assisted suicide, euthanasia, and human cloning for biomedical research; and ignoring those who are suffering as innocent victims of war; the neglect and abuse of children, the exploitation of vulnerable labourers, the sexual trafficking or employment of girls, boys, young women or young men, the abandonment of the aged, racial oppression and discrimination, the persecution of believers of all faiths, and the failure to take steps necessary to halt the spread of preventable diseases.

WE FURTHERMORE AFFIRM that marriage is an objective reality – a covenantal union of husband and wife – that it is the duty of the law to recognise and support for the sake of justice and the common good. No one has a civil right to have a non-marital relationship treated as a marriage. If the law fails to recognise and support the objective reality of the covenantal union of husband and wife, real social harms follow, in many areas such as the well-being of children, religious liberty, and the rights of parents. Civil society is damaged whenever the law itself becomes a tool for eroding a sound understanding of marriage, on which the flourishing of the marriage culture in any society vitally depends. We cannot afford – ever – to re-define marriage in such a way as to embody in our laws a false proclamation about what marriage is.

Marriage is the first institution of human society, the institution on which all other institutions have their foundation, the original and most important institution for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all persons in a society. Where the marriage culture begins to erode, social pathologies of every sort quickly manifest themselves.

To strengthen families, we must stop glamorising promiscuity and infidelity and restore among our people a sense of the profound beauty, mystery and holiness of faithful marital love. We must reform ill-advised policies that contribute to the weakening of the institution of marriage, including the discredited idea of unilateral divorce. We must work in the legal, cultural, and religious domains to impart in young and other people a sound understanding of what marriage is, what it requires, and why it is worth the commitment and sacrifices that faithful spouses make.

Yielding to the impulse to re-define marriage in order to recognise same-sex and multiple partner relationships must in all circumstances be resisted; for yielding to it would effect the abandonment of the possibility of restoring a sound understanding of marriage and, with it, the hope of rebuilding a healthy marriage culture. It would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about procreation and the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life.

Therefore, out of both love and prudent concern for the common good, we pledge to preserve the legal definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman and to rebuild the marriage culture of our society.

MOREOVER, WE AFFIRM that no one should be compelled to embrace any religion against his will, nor should persons or communities of faith be forbidden, subject to a reasonable and sympathetic application of law, to worship God according to the dictates of conscience or to express freely and publicly their deeply held religious convictions.

We acknowledge that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the example of Christ Himself and in the dignity of the human person created in the image of God.

We deplore wherever it is found the use of anti-discrimination statutes to force religious institutions, businesses and service providers of various sorts either to comply with activities they judge to be deeply immoral or to go out of business.

The biblical purpose of law is to preserve order and serve justice and the common good; yet laws that are unjust, and especially laws that purport to compel citizens to do what is unjust, undermine the common good, rather than serve it. Unjust laws degrade human beings, and inasmuch as they can claim no authority beyond sheer human will, they lack any power to bind in conscience.

Through the centuries Christianity has taught that civil disobedience is sometimes required. Because we honour justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we receive or promulgate any rule purporting to force our institutions to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as they and we know it, about morality, marriage and the family.

THEREFORE AND ACCORDINGLY, the intentions, affirmations and declarations contained in this document, the Fort Street Declaration*, are hereby proclaimed on this Day of National Thanksgiving, the 7^th of December, 2015, at the George Town Town Hall, on Fort Street, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, by the Ministers of the Cayman Ministers’ Association as an expression of our shared values that have been part of the foundation of our Judeo-Christian heritage, that have informed our Constitution, and that are aspired to by the larger Christian community that inhabits these islands.

*Note:- The Fort Street Declaration makes use of words and phrases that are drawn from the 2009 Manhattan Declaration - A Call of Christian Conscience.