Custos Rotulorum of Westmoreland, the Reverend Hartley Perrin, is declaring that the recent decision by the United States Supreme Court to legitimise gay marriage in all 50 of that country's states runs contrary to the teachings of the Bible.
"We are not here to bash anyone or to be ultra-critical of persons who have chosen a certain lifestyle, but we still believe that the Good Book, the Bible, recognises the need, in terms of marriage, to be of the opposite sex, not of the same kind," Perrin said as he made the keynote address during the Montego Bay Community College's 40th anniversary valedictory service on Sunday.
"The day before yesterday (Friday), the United States claimed that they have won, because they have allowed all the states of America to have same-sex marriage," continued Perrin.
"Two men can get married anywhere in the USA, so if two boys want to get married, they can go to the USA and get married, and also two women could get married. It is difficult to understand this dimension of our development as a people and as a world."
Perrin's sentiment was shared by fellow pastor, the Reverend Glenroy Clarke of the Lucea United Church in Hanover, who emphasised that homosexual unions are against the blueprint for marriage as outlined in the Bible.
"The legalisation of same-sex unions is contrary not only to scripture, but to the fundamental principles of nature. It raises questions about how we see our human existence, and the role of God in the creation of male and female for procreation; those are questions that we need to wrestle with," said Clarke.
"Notwithstanding that, I think the Church has a moral role in the preservation of Christian principles in society, but we also have a psychological and emotional role to those persons who are challenged with their sexuality," Clarke continued. "The role of the Church is not one of condemnation of persons, but condemnation of those particular lifestyles. And while we condemn the lifestyle, we must offer opportunities for persons to be redeemed from those lifestyles."
Last week, the US Supreme Court legalised same-sex marriage in the US, a move that was applauded by US President Barack Obama and his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, who is seeking to become president at the conclusion of Obama's term.
Immediately following the decision by the US Supreme Court, the Jamaican Coalition for a Healthy Society (JCHS) spoke out strongly against the move, calling it a rejection of natural order.
"It is a reflection that the Americans have rejected the philosophy of the natural order as a basis for their law," JCHS Chairman Dr Wayne West said at the time.
"... Their law is now going to be informed by the desires of the powerful elite, and, interestingly, that was something that the philosopher Aristotle advised against, a couple thousand years ago."