Outweekly's (Jamaica) Flag Raising Press Release

OUTWEEKLY RAISES FLAG TO MARK INTERNATIONAL DAY AGAINST HOMOPHOBIA


Kingston - MAY 17, 2009.

OUTWEEKLY joins with other groups on International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) to make a statement that there is much work to be done to improve the quality of life for LGBT people internationally and as well here in Jamaica. As part of its celebration of IDAHO, OUTWEEKLY raised a Rainbow Flag in the capital city of Kingston as it is the world’s most recognized symbol of LGBT diversity.

The six colures represent various facets of LGBT communities: red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, blue for art, and violet for spirituality.

OUTWEEKLY recognises the need for an end to homophobia in Jamaica because our brothers and sisters continue to be attacked and injured, forced from their communities and even murdered for being themselves. We recognise and urge the government to take a stand to curb the drivers of Homophobia. The Church and the Dancehall, with its often violent and anti-gay lyrics, have and continue to play their part in instigating violence and creating a negative image of the gay community. We believe strongly that the church in particular should concern itself with preaching love and not hate.

Jamaican Dancehall artists continue to produce and perform music that incites violence against homosexuals and this is somehow accepted.

This type of contemporary music is very influential and has helped to shape the ignorance and callous nature in people, causing them to behave violently towards homosexuals. let us come together to end homophobia in Jamaica, together we stand divided we fall.

International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) is celebrated May 17.

Kenneth Davis,

Chairman


Outweekly is now defunct but it shows the resolve, this is the same group who protested at the Hilton Hotel (now Wyndham) with guess what? rainbow flags again!! after one of the guards there harassed one of their members. 

On August 7, 2009 a board member of The OUTWEEKLY group, was stopped, verbally harassed and asked to leave the Hotel because he was perceived to be a homosexual. “The Hotel don’t have enough water for u fishes” (there is no space at the hotel for homosexuals), “its time we start killing out you faggots, too much of you guys now.” Say members of the security team.

Read more on Gay Jamaica Watch 

Peace and tolerance 

H

Gay men in Jamaica must lead two separate lives

Lisa Biagiotti is reporting on HIV/AIDS, sexuality and young gay men in Jamaica. Her interest in the subject began when she met Alex Brown* 18 months ago. The story below is his — of a gay Jamaican who received asylum in the U.S. because he was persecuted on the basis of his sexuality. Though Alex is free from persecution, he still wrestles with issues of secrecy and religion, and his family in Jamaica still doesn't know he’s gay.

A gay Jamaican man shares his story, but conceals his identity for fear of attacks. Photo: Lisa Biagiotti

It’s no secret that homophobia crosses class lines in Jamaica. From the inner cities to elite high schools, homosexuality is not accepted in Jamaican society. Pastors preach against the sin of homosexuality from the pulpit and dancehall lyrics glamorize gay killings.
Mob violence and attacks against gays have earned Jamaica the mark as one of the most intolerant nations for homosexuals. And the act of sodomy is still illegal, holding a 12-year prison sentence of hard labor.

Hurling stones in Jamaica
Alex Brown knew he had to leave Jamaica after back-to-back anti-gay attacks at work and home. On a Saturday evening in August 2002, two young men knocked on Alex’s cottage door in Kingston, shouting, “We know you’re a battyman (gay man — batty means buttocks) and you better pay us.”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, I’m not a battyman. No, I’m not,” he cried. The 6-foot-3-inch Alex shut the front door, cowered beneath a window of his one-room hut and watched five men hurl stones at his home, shattering windows and alarming neighbors.
“Are you going to come pick up my dead body?” Alex pleaded to the female police dispatcher. Alex feared he would end up like his gay uncle, who was beaten to death in downtown Kingston in the late 1990s.

The police were stationed two blocks away, but it took more than an hour for them to arrive. They rounded up the men at a corner store. When the men accused Alex of making a pass at them, an officer turned to Alex and said, “If we find out you’re a battyman, we’ll come over there and lock you up.”
“The police don’t protect gay people in Jamaica,” Alex said. He feared reporting other anti-gay incidents where he was punched in the face, threatened to be run over by a car, or robbed at gunpoint at Portmore Plaza. “I could not go back to the same police station that threatened to lock me up because I’m gay.”
In 2002, Alex left his 9-year-old son, the offspring of the only opposite-sex encounter he has had, and his job of 13 years as a wharf warehouse supervisor. With a fellow gay Jamaican, he headed to London to complete his bachelor’s and earn a master’s degree in business administration.
“I had to move from one place to the next,” Alex said. “I was accused of being gay. I learned my lesson.”
When he couldn’t pay his tuition bills, he was forced to return to Jamaica in June 2006. The anti-gay sentiment seemed more hostile. Alex’s best friend Emil and ex-lover Robert had been murdered earlier that year. Six months of further harassment ensued and Alex decided to board a plane to the U.S.

In 1994, former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno expanded asylum law to include immigrants who could prove government persecution based on sexual preference. Asylum applications must be filed within one year of entry into the U.S. Immigrants must prove persecution in their home country on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group — gay asylum cases fall under this category.
While gay asylees make up a small percentage of the 12,000 total asylum cases per year, the severe situation in Jamaica against homosexuals proved grounds for asylum.
Immigration Equality, a national U.S. organization that works to end immigration discrimination, handles about 100 gay asylum cases a year. They are seeing a steady stream of applications from Jamaicans, which make up about 20 percent of their caseload. Their stories always seem similar.

Living a double life, againGay Jamaicans abroad still face challenges in reconciling two parts of themselves — being gay and being Jamaican. Despite the freedom from persecution that asylum offers, they are frequently drawn into communities of other Jamaican immigrants, including the very same people that persecuted them. They find themselves see-sawing between gay isolation and keeping up appearances for the Jamaican community at home and abroad.
“You live a double live,” Alex said. “Sometimes living two or three lives; that’s how it is.”
After spending a year on a cot in a New York homeless shelter, where he shared a room with two other men, Alex now has his own subsidized apartment in the Bronx. He received his Greencard and is working on his nursing certificate.


But even with asylum and a new start, some Jamaican roots cannot be forgotten completely. So, he hasn’t told anyone about his asylum — not his 13-year-old son, his family in Jamaica or his church communities.
“When you’re gay, you’re isolated,” Alex said. “Once you interact, it opens up a gate for your own downfall.”
- Lisa Biagiotti
*Alex Brown’s name has been changed to protect his identity.
Stay tuned for Worldfocus’ signature stories on HIV/AIDS and gay stigma in Jamaica.

International Day Against Homophobia, calls for country to embrace value of tolerance

Kingston --- May 17, 2009

The Jamaica Forum for Lesbians All-sexuals and Gays joins other human rights organisations across the world in marking the International Day Against Homophobia on May 17, 2009. The theme for the day this year is “Homosexuality knows no borders”. In Jamaica, both the day and its theme are particularly relevant, given the popular local sentiment that homosexuality is unJamaican. It is this feeling, promoted by religious leaders, justified by some in media and exploited by politicians that generally feeds antigay attacks and makes it difficult for gays and lesbians in Jamaica to lead lives where their civil and human rights are respected and protected.

J-FLAG remains constant in its view that Jamaica will not become a better society until it creates a safer and more wholesome environment in which all its citizens, including lesbians and gays, can live peaceably. As members of a socially outcast group, lesbians and gays, particularly those who reside in innercity communities, where violence and hardship are normal features of daily life, must go to extremes to survive. Many hide in unfulfilling heterosexual relationships, with partners whom they cannot love the way they should; others distance themselves from families to be spared from the judgment of those they love; still others attempt to escape the ostracism through suicide or flight to foreign lands. This state of affairs needs urgent attention as part of the greater social transformation that the country seeks and so badly deserves.

We believe that the defence of antigay discourse as an integral facet of the Jamaican national character is part of the malaise that bedevils our society. Indeed, it is our view that there can be little social progress in Jamaica if the country fails to embrace the tried and proven values of tolerance and sensitivity to difference on which other societies have advanced. For this reason, social actors and opinion leaders must become more conscious that their justification of antigay attitudes and behaviours is not the defence of Jamaican culture but the buttressing of cultural values that constrain the rights of some Jamaicans to act and to be.

J-FLAG hopes for the day that there will no longer be the need to mark an International Day Against Homophobia. For this to happen in Jamaica, the country must begin to see its gay and lesbian citizens and residents as having the same basic civil and human rights as heterosexuals. It therefore is critical that political, academic, religious and business leaders repudiate the civil framework that treats rights and freedoms in an exclusionary manner. Together, we must work for the protection of the rights and freedoms of all citizens and residents as the ultimate feature of our national identity. This protection lies not in the defence of a religious definition of the Jamaican but in the establishment of a modern and truly democratic society. We reiterate our oft-expressed view that as a secular society, Jamaica’s social and political framework remains, to the detriment of its gay and other citizens, overdetermined by religion.
~30~

Jason McFarlane
Programmes Manager
Jamaica Forum for Lesbians All-Sexuals and Gays - J-FLAG
Tel: (876)978-8988
Fax: (876) 978-7876
Website: http://www.jflag.org/
Blog: http://jflag.blogspot.com/
email: admin@jflag.org