In The Days

• Source: Jamaica Observer
• News Date: 7/9/07

Opposition Leader Bruce Golding would have surprised no one with his assertion in yesterday’s Sunday Observer that his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) will not attempt to remove Jamaica’s anti-gay laws should they win political power in the upcoming elections.
Any such attempt at this juncture in Jamaica’s history would be tantamount to political suicide.

“And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded. But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. ”
—Luke 17:26-30

The anti-homosexual sentiment among Jamaicans and much of the Caribbean runs across all social classes and all sectors. It is deeply ingrained – embedded in our culture and traditions.
On occasions in Jamaica, homophobia has caused us to hang our heads in shame following mob houndings, stonings, beatings, even murder of individuals accused of being gay.

The aversion to homosexuality has been a major reason for the long delay in consensus on the very important Charter of Rights Bill currently before Parliament. Readers will recall, for example, that a group of Christian activist lawyers – Lawyers Christian Fellowship (LCF) – fear that the concept of privacy could be used as a basis for the Courts to declare homosexual activity, within the confines of people’s homes, legal.

The truth, though, is that on a global scale attitudes are changing rapidly, and in the context of homosexuality Jamaicans need to be alert as to what that means. In Europe and much of the rest of the world, buggery laws such as exist here have long been scrapped. And in the European Union (EU) the right to be homosexual is now accepted as fundamental. Countries like Jamaica are now seen by the EU and others – not least human rights groups – as being in breach of basic human rights because of anti-gay laws and attitudes.

It is likely that the pro-gay pressure on Jamaica and its Caricom partners will become even greater should the more liberal Democrats overcome the Republicans in the US presidential election next year.
Jamaicans are already well aware that Reggae artistes who have used their medium to campaign against homosexuality have felt the weight and power of the growing global gay lobby.

For Jamaicans, caught up in our own little world, the global pro-gay trend has developed with bewildering speed – sneaking up on us like a thief in the night.

Perhaps nothing illustrates the global transformation as the very word ‘gay’. Not so long ago it meant happy, light-hearted, carefree. In modern dictionaries that meaning is now described as ‘dated’.
In the context of homosexuality, those are the realities that Jamaica’s political leaders must bear in mind as they approach life after the upcoming elections.

Like it or not, our political and other leaders must somehow start to nudge our people towards the day when an accommodation is made with the homosexual community.
And while it won’t happen anytime soon, Jamaicans will have to understand that there will come a time when our buggery laws end up on the scrap heap of history.