By Laura Ann Phillips

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (CNS) – Interfaith leaders, including Catholics, have declared their belief that marriage can only be between a biological man and a biological woman.

Claiming to jointly represent almost 90 percent of Trinidad and Tobago’s population, in a news conference they also stated their intent to make two proposals to the Trinidad and Tobago government.

The first is that the Marriage Act be amended to include the words, “biological male and biological female.” The second  is that the Equal Opportunity Act not be amended to include LGBT definitions of gender and sexuality.

“The Equal Opportunity Act adequately caters to all citizens,” said the Rev. Desmond Austin of the Trinidad and Tobago Council of Evangelical Churches, “and the word ‘gender’ or ‘sex’ should not be redefined.”

A High Court decision in April declared two sections of the Sexual Offences Act dealing with sodomy null and void, prompting LGBT groups to seek amendments to the Equal Opportunity Act.

Archbishop Jason Gordon of Port-of-Spain referred to remarks by Pope Francis and said: “For us, the body is very instructive, and reality is always more important than ideas. Children are born either male or female.

“The notion of a fluid gender is something that has no biological foundation and is a series of ideas,” he explained, “and the further along it goes, is the more genders keep getting thrown up in the equation. And that is because it’s not founded in anything that’s called reality.”