LGBTQIA Debate: President Anura Kumara Dissanayake “Rule of Desire” vs. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith’s Moral Governance  

 

 

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith’s recent statement warning against legalizing same-sex marriage and LGBTQIA+ ideology in Sri Lanka is not merely a religious outcry — it is a national alarm echoed by the majority of the populace heard across party lines, faiths, and generations. The President’s response echoes the opposite, and demands a far more urgent rebuttal.

 

Cardinal has given his stand: On this issue we are with the Cardinal

• https://www.newswire.lk/2025/07/27/how-can-two-men-build-a-family-cardinal-slams-same-sex-marriages/
• https://www.facebook.com/adaderana/posts/sri-lankas-cardinal-ranjith-opposes-same-sex-marriage-concept-read-morehttpswww/1066621652301862/
• https://www.thecolombopost.org/2025/07/cardinals-opposition-to-same-sex-marriages/

 

 

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has claimed:

“Can we ask someone to deny & compartmentalize their feelings in the laws we make?

How can we prevent someone’s desires from being legally recognized?

Isn’t that unfair?”

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19Xs7NcdGx/

 

This line of reasoning — that people’s feelings and desires should shape national laws — is not just morally irresponsible. It is legally untenable, socially dangerous, and constitutionally reckless & one unexpected of a sitting President.

 

The President’s statement reveals Public Pulse Ignored

The President’s statement reveals a growing disconnect from the Public Pulse.
Across temples, homes, and classrooms, the people are speaking — but the President refuses to listen.

 

The people are asking: Who gave you the mandate to rewrite our morality?

 

1. Why feelings are not a Foundation for Law

 

The rule of law exists to regulate feelings and desires — not to indulge them.

 

Foundational Legal Principle: “Fiat justitia ruat caelum” — Let justice be done though the heavens fall.

 

The law does not bend to individual emotions or private preferences. It stands as a collective boundary that separates moral order from personal chaos. If desire becomes law, then every criminal, every addict, every predator can claim “it’s how I feel” as justification.

 

Where does this end?

• If LGBTQIA+ ideology is accepted on the basis of “feelings,” what of the adult who desires a minor?
• What of the thief who “feels” entitled to someone else’s wealth?
• What of the person who “identifies” as a cat, tree, or dragon and demands state accommodation?
• A murderer who “feels” he has a right to kill or a rapist who feels he has a right to rape.
• Or a sibling who desires incestuous marriage?
• Shall necrophiliacs and zoophiles next demand legal recognition of their“feelings”?

 

Laws exist not to cater to personal feelings but to protect the most vulnerable — including children and future generations — from harm disguised as personal desire.

 

Is the President prepared to amend the Penal Code every time someone’s “feeling” is hurt by its prohibitions?

If so entire law books have to be abolished!

 

ii. Why Laws exist: Order, Not Indulgence

 

In ancient times, there were no gates, no judges, no CCTV, no police. That simplicity was built on common moral values and social trust. People knew right from wrong. Good from bad.

 

But today, laws, regulations, and courts exist to contain:

• Human impulses
• Unethical conduct
• Harmful desires

 

To dismantle the law in the name of individual feelings is to abolish civilization & create chaos and confusion.

 

Legal Maxim: “Ubi jus ibi remedium” — Where there is a right, there is a remedy.

But rights do not emerge from feelings. They arise from duties, natural law, social harmony, and public interest.

 

III. LGBTQIA+ is not a Human Rights issue — It’s an Ideological Trojan Horse

 

The attempt to mask Western-funded gender ideology as a human rights campaign must be exposed for what it truly is: ideological colonization.

 

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith’s warning echoes what many Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims also fear: a global, donor-driven agenda to deconstruct family, religion, and national identity.

As the Cardinal rightly said, this government is playing with fire.

iv. Constitutional and Legal Grounds to Reject the LGBTQIA+ Push

 

Sri Lanka is not bound by any international treaty to:

• Recognize same-sex marriage
• Teach transgender ideology in schools
• Repeal Sections 365/365A
• The 2024 Gender Equity Bill-Supreme Court determination issued by the new Chief Justice clearly nullifies any attempt to legalize homosexuality or promote LGBTQIA ideology in Sri Lanka as being against the Constitution & social & moral standards of this Nation & its civilizational history.

 

In fact, our Constitution (Article 9) upholds the primacy of Buddhism and the moral guidance of the Buddha Sasana — for both Sangha and laypersons. This includes upholding public morality, social stability, and cultural integrity.

 

The Penal Code Sections 365 and 365A, amended in 1995 and 2006, were designed to protect children from same-sex sexual abuse — not to criminalize private adult conduct to satisfy their sexual urges/feelings. These laws are protective, not discriminatory.

 

To repeal them under international pressure is not “progress.” It opens the door to legal ambiguity that endangers children — weakening protections against same-sex sexual exploitation and grooming of minors.

 

V.Legal Authority against Foreign Meddling

Sri Lanka is under no obligation to accept ideological demands from the UN, IMF, or Western embassies a fact the current Government will have to accept like it or not.

 

• The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961)prohibits foreign interference in domestic legislation.
• The UN Charter (Article 2.7)states: “Nothing shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.”

 

Thus, UN Special Rapporteurs, Western embassies, and donor agencies have no legal mandate to dictate Sri Lanka’s education content, legal codes, or moral direction dangling various carrots in front of the President or his Govt.

 

vi. Reject the slippery slope of ‘Rights Based on Desires’

If laws are changed every time someone says, “This is how I feel,” “I have a right to how I feel – the law must accommodate my feelings” then the law loses meaning. Society collapses into chaos.

This is not inclusion — this is institutionalized confusion.

 

Children are now being told they can be cats, genderless, or anti-human. This is not progress. This is identity psychosis, financed by foreign billionaires and enabled by complicit leaders. Do parents raise children to be indoctrinated to thinking & behaving like a cat or a tree?

Parents deserve the right to raise their children free from ideological confusion — children must not become pawns in foreign-funded social experiments.

 

VII. A Call to All Religious and Civic Leaders

President Dissanayake’s views must be publicly challenged before “his feelings” become the law.

• No one voted to erase Sri Lanka’s cultural identity.
• No leader has the right to legalize moral decay.

 

If a president says “law must follow desire,” then he is no longer fit to uphold law.

 

VIII. A President disconnected from the People

President Dissanayake did not win the mandate of the people to change our moral and cultural foundation.

His “rule of desire” statement represents the promotion of a dangerous external ideology — one that the majority of Sri Lankans reject across every religious, ethnic, and political lines.

 

He has betrayed the people’s trust by siding with foreign-funded ideologues over Sri Lanka’s civilizational heritage.

If a President chooses “desire” over duty, he is no longer leading. He is indulging.

 

This is no longer just about LGBTQIA+. This is about a government — hijacked by foreign influence — attempting to socially re-engineer an entire civilization without public consent.

ix.Religious Leaders must act now — Silence is Complicity

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith has courageously sounded the alarm. Now it is time for:

• The Mahanayakas of the Buddhist clergy
• The Muslim Ulema Councils
• The Hindu Kovils and Saiva institutions
• Catholic communities

to issue public joint declarations rejecting the President’s remarks.

 

This is no longer about “gay rights.” This is about a government willing to rewrite law to indulge lust and confuse children — while threatening national identity, child protection, and moral governance.

When faith leaders speak as one, the nation cannot be divided.

 

X. A National Movement of Conscience must begin Now: Hold MPs Accountable

We call on all Members of Parliament:

• Where do you stand?
• Will you stand with the moral values of the people — or the dangerous ideology of “rule by desire”?

We call on teachers, parents, lawyers, artists, youth leaders, and monks:

• Raise your voice in schools, temples, villages, and cities.
• Do not be silent as your country is ideologically colonized.

We call on the media:

• Will you question the President’s justification of desire as law?
• Will you inform the people — or censor the truth?

This is not a partisan issue. This is a civilizational issue.

If the President will not defend our children, our culture, or our Constitution — the people will.

 

We the people, of all faiths and backgrounds, say NO:

• No to foreign ideological colonization
• No to rewriting laws to suit emotional whims
• No to foreign-funded psychological reprogramming of our children
• No to silence from our leaders

 

Let the Cardinal’s warning echo in temples, mosques, churches, and classrooms:

We defeated terrorism with unity. Now we must defeat ideological colonization with the same courage.

 

Let us rise — not with hatred, but with heritage.

Let us teach our children not confusion, but clarity.

Let us build a nation that honors truth, not temporary trends with lifelong damage.

 

 

Shenali D Waduge