Promoting homosexuality? No, its about freedom of choice, privacy & tolerance

In Jamaica today many of the anti gay lobby flex their muscles every now and again by grabbing a Bible or the law books and beating us over the head damming us to hell already and saying gays are trying to promote homosexuality as if it's some contagious disease that you get on touch or contact and reminding us buggery is illegal. Some including lawyers and journalists also make the mistake to say homosexuality is illegal when it is not, morality cannot be legislated and this is not a theocracy though by the looks of it we are slowly getting there. It is buggery, the physical act of anal penetration that the law is concerned with not the other factors and stereotypes of male homosexuality.


They also seem to forget that heterosexuals also practice anal sex when presenting their arguments. Intertwined and interwoven in all of that is the hypocrisy and classism where many of these same "moralists" mainly from middle and upper class Jamaica who speak out in public on airwaves and in print through sometimes hateful letters to the respective editors and or editorials have gay friends in their social circles but of course they are rich and educated so those are spared the insults, innuendo and rage that is presented otherwise.


This same anti gay lobby which includes learned professionals, Members of Parliament, legal and religious luminaries would much prefer if we kept our "filth" as MP Ernest Smith calls it to ourselves as he said in a recent interview presented on a Worldfocus report about stigma on homosexuals in Jamaica and HIV. The gay haters pontificate with great pomp and ceremony using the "majority" opinion that battyman fi dead (gays are to die) or at least we must not be seen or heard.

He has been unable to prove his statements about gays being violent all this while using the protection and immunity of parliament, our parliament in essence to slander an entire set of Jamaicans some of whom are sitting in the very house itself but in the name of expediency keep quiet as homosexuality can become politically explosive, if gays were violent half the stuff that reach us including the horrific acts of homophobic violence would have been responded to or be less as people wouldn't mess with us to begin with. Doesn't he realise that we are in a failed state right now? or is he only directing his venom at poorer classes while ignoring the well to do and business elite hence further perpetuating the two Jamaicas sundrome? (rich and poor)


also see: "Keep it to Yuself mentality" on homosexuality part 2 .... on "str8 Jamaica (part 1 linked) and Homophobic Violence Ernie Smith & Venom from this Blog.


Yet while all this is going on the proposed Charter of Rights has been stalling in the Senate and in the house we are then told that consensual buggery is also illegal in the recently updated Sexual Offences Bill get the full PDF version here so the Charter when I last saw it speaks to the right to privacy and the whole question of the domain or threshold of ones home or owned premises is sacred is meaningless then. If I as an adult choose to have sex with another man and the state really wants to get me, whether consensual or not I can be prosecuted even by breaking down my door without a warrant I guess to lock me up on a suspicion simply because I am making love to a man. I don't think we as gays realise how real this is. Oral sex is also covered in the new Bill as well but they have cleverly make it gender neutral along with buggery I think this is so as to avoid the criticism that gays were specially targeted in designing the law.


Why guarantee a right to privacy and then challenge it with pieces of legislation that impedes on that right so profoundly? it doesn't make sense or am I wrong here?


Tolerance:
We seem to think tolerance means that someone gays are gonna get up and try to homosexualise everyone, as far as I am concerned you are either gay, straight, bisexual or any other variant of sexuality that identifies you it depends on if one chooses to act on it. Why can't we all just get along? we readily watch North American and Jamaican gay themed movies, plays and listen to artists Elton John, Rupaul and George Michael who ironically Elton and George's music is popular here played even by the homophobic of DJs on radio and in the dancehall & mixtapes sometimes yet we get worked up over homosexuals or the lifestyles.


I think we have the capacity to co exist with ease if we only try or want to. The stereotypical images of gays are often made into comedy although sometimes it teeters on homophobia with an aire of cynicism and scorn. Respecting people's rights and freedoms from both ends must become the benchmark where we move from, all people can't be the same and people must be free to choose as long as it does not impede greatly on another individual and the nation in general.


H