During the groundbreaking for the controversial project in which the Island Territory will build a chapel for the local Methodist community at Belvedere, not only were recent media reports on the issue characterised as "vilifying," but members of the Executive Council went as far as to say there would be no separation of church and state in St. Maarten. While the commissioners involved perhaps are not fully conscious of the historical meaning of this concept in terms of exchanging theocracies for democracies, their statements are nothing more than an emotional attempt to defend a decision that simply cannot pass the test of good governance.
To begin with, having St. Maarten Housing Development Foundation (SMHDF) make available an empty parcel of land and the no-longer-used structure located on it for the church to use was doubtful at best, especially as a building permit was never issued to convert the old hangar there into a chapel. That is all the more the case because it turns out the land in question was already destined for a sports field.
To correct this "oversight," government then not only finds an alternative piece of land for the church, but offers compensation for work already done to rebuild the structure into a chapel – reportedly to the tune of 50,000 guilders – even though that work was done without the necessary permits. To top it off, the Executive Council has now decided to have the church built itself, and even holds a public bidding process for it, an unprecedented direct involvement of government not just in religion as a whole, but with one specific church group.
What's worse, this new church will cost the taxpayer half a million guilders, 10 times what reportedly was spent at the original location and apparently needs to be "compensated." To top it all off, that money comes from the budget of the Tourism Department at a time when the local tourism economy is struggling to recover from the global crisis and urgently needs all the funding it can get for promotion and marketing.
In short: two wrongs don't make a right, and that has absolutely nothing to do with one's spiritual beliefs.
