The gay lobby scam (Observer Editorial)

Lloyd B Smith

We'll give the benefit of the doubt to United States immigration judge Irma Lopez-Defillo who last week decided against deporting a Jamaican-born lesbian on the grounds that, because of her sexual orientation, she might be tortured here.
For quite frankly, Judge Lopez-Defillo's ruling would have been informed by the picture being painted of Jamaica by the international gay lobby.
So when Judge Lopez-Defillo is reported as saying, "the general atmosphere in Jamaica is a feeling of no tolerance towards homosexuals in general and, as such, the respondent's life is definitely at risk", we really can't blame her. Because, as we said, that's the impression that the world has of Jamaica, courtesy of gay rights activists who are meeting resistance in their efforts to force their lifestyle upon Jamaicans.
What is becoming clear to us, however, is that homosexual Jamaicans are using this argument to legitimise their immigration status in North America and Europe.
And this most recent case of this 29-year-old lesbian is a perfect example of the scam being perpetrated by gay Jamaicans on the authorities abroad.
In fact, we are sure that every Jamaican who read this story last week had a good chuckle, mostly for the fact that Jamaicans have, over the past decade at least, demonstrated a higher level of tolerance for homosexuality among women.
So, her 33-year-old brother, who was reported in the story as telling the court that she would be ostracised if sent back to Jamaica, was really being disingenuous. And the court bought it, hook, line and sinker.
We are not here denying that gay men have not been attacked and beaten in Jamaica. We have reported on some of these atrocities and have condemned them in this space.
However, no one can challenge the fact that many gay men and women in Jamaica are generally ignored by the populace. In fact, the cases of violence directed at homosexuals are far fewer than the gay lobby would have the world believe.
And in many of those cases we have found that it was the public display of homosexual men and their physical response to public criticism that led to them being attacked.
The nonsense spewed by Mr Robert Carr at the just-concluded International AIDS Society XVII Conference in Mexico does not help the gay lobby either.
Mr Carr, the executive director of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition, in relating an incident in Half-Way-Tree when gay men were mobbed, chose to ignore the reported fact that the mobbing took place after one of the men splashed liquid on a woman who found their behaviour distasteful and said so.
He also neglected to point out that the men were rescued by the police, offering only that, "in a context where people denied homophobic violence, the police show up armed and the media show up to take pictures".
That the Jamaican police patrol the streets armed is not an aberration. Neither is the fact that media cover events in public, including disturbances.
As we have argued before, people who regard homosexuality as sinful and repulsive will more easily bristle at the gay lobby's push to force acceptance of their lifestyle.
And that resistance is strengthened when homosexuals are quick to cry homophobia when one of their own is murdered, even in the face of evidence suggesting that the homicide was committed by a jealous lover.
We'll repeat a suggestion we offered to the gay lobby three months ago. Instead of trying to sully Jamaica's name, allow Jamaicans to adapt to changing perceptions of people's lifestyles and the fact that individuals of all kinds can coexist.