Even as Guyana’s gay right organisation held the country’s first ever march- though small in number - to clamour for equal rights, plans are in train to intensify a bipartisan political lobby to scrap laws activists say are discriminatory.

The Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD) on Saturday held a march of about eight persons through a section of northern Georgetown away from the city centre to highlight their demands.

Backing their calls for British colonial laws against buggery and cross-dressing to be repealed and for same-sex unions to be permitted, they marched from Parade Ground, east along Middle Street, north along Camp Street, west along Lamaha Street and south along Main Street back to their point of origin.

Saying that was a “safe route” given by the police, Simpson defended the low turn out at the march on grounds of societal stigmatization and discrimination. Rough global estimates are that about 10 percent of Guyana’s 750,000 persons are lesbians, gays and bisexuals.

“You have six people coming out for an issue which is very stigmatized like this, I think is very significant in this political context where people think that nothing they do or say will be listened to by the authorities,” he told Demerara Waves Online News (www.demwaves.com ).

However, the march did not go down well with devout Pentecostal Christian, Shirley Eleanor Jordan who was passing in her car at the same time. “I’m not supporting it because I believe God’s plan for the stability of the society and the family starts with a covenant between a man and a woman,” she told Demerara Waves Online News (www.demwaves.com ) moments after briefly speaking with SASOD activist, Vidyaratha Kissoon.

The march was one of a number of activities to observe May 17 as  International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO). It is coordinated by the Paris-based "IDAHO Committee," founded and presided by French academic Louis-Georges Tin. The day aims to coordinate international events to garner support for the respect of lesbians and gay rights worldwide.

Ahead of a round of state-sponsored public consultations on LGBT rights that government has publicly promised to hold before the next United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR) later this year, SASOD has completed its own round of brainstorming. Simpson said the key decision emerging from that LGBT “community consultation” on April 16 has been to take advantage of the “new dispensation” in which the Executive does not enjoy majority support in the legislature.

“While the Executive branch is leading this process, the legislative branch needs to be involved because we are talking about the repeal of laws so it doesn’t make as much sense for the executive to conduct consultations on repealing laws if they don’t have the majority opposition on board and involved in the process,” he said.

SASOD says it wants an “inclusive and transparent” consultative process with clear terms of reference.

SASOD wants government to establish a consultative group with  representatives from the governing 32-seat Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPPC), the 26-seat A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) which has seven seats in the National Assembly.

The gay rights organisation plans to dispatch several pieces of evidence of discrimination to Presidential Advisor on Governance, Gail Teixeira. They include copies of affidavits in a February 2010 High Court case that challenges the constitutionality of laws against cross-dressing. The case is still pending.

Police had arrested and charged four men with wearing female attire in 2009, an act SASOD says in court documents was as irrational, discriminatory, undemocratic, contrary to the rule of law and unconstitutional.”

Under intense pressure from sections of the religious community, Guyana several years ago aborted moves to amend the constitution to provide for the respect of persons on the basis of their sexual orientation.