Commitment Ceremonies despite no legal marriage rights yet .......

In previous years I looked at commitment ceremonies in as parts of previous posts which followed up on some analysis across Jamaica for LGBT persons, other similar posts appear on Gay Jamaica Watch, Jamaican LGBT people have been making use of the avenues available to them to publicly as possible celebrate their love lives with friends and supportive family members and at that year in June often seen as the month of weddings there was no exception although the activities seem a little low keyed as years gone by as requests from the two or three Reverends who offer such duties to carry out the services fell. I would normally get calls to act as a witness in them, provide disc jock services for the reception or provide some sort of music on a storage form such as CDs or so.

This time around however as the Christmas holidays approach there has been a pleasant spike in terms of requests and questions/queries from persons in Jamaica seeking a space to have their ceremonies or renewal of ‘vows’ for older couples and as always since I have seen it lesbians tend to be the ones who go into long term unions than gay men but the latter have been taking the plunge as well. Like in part one of this entry the north American and indeed worldwide influences where ‘gay marriage’ is being made or has become legal persons are aspiring for same even if it is not legal yet here but in minds they want to show their love and explore the ceremonial components of a stable union. Foreigners from the United States mostly and as far as France in one case have also made queries via email and at first when I saw it I thought it was a joke or spam only to realise when I answered it was a serious inquiry.

With the advent of business avenues such as Airbnb as well and social media the requests are facilitated way easier than in times past, pink dollar markets are now open to virtually all. Non Jamaican and locals living overseas queries especially from those persons who are restricted by limited budgets or won’t or cannot afford a five star hotel after travelling want a more smaller intimate setting for their commitment ceremony nuptials. Lovely small and relatively reasonable priced spots in Portland, St Thomas and even Kingston outside of the traditional north coast flats are now easier to access directly or through blogs and NGOs. The price point is the key as prospective guests and couples avoid the middle man travel advisors or booking agents and make use of the advantages. Many of these properties under AirBnB and other independent guest house owners are seeing the opportunities as well and who attempt to roll out the red carpet albeit these are owned by heterosexuals. A married couple in Portland who came in contact with me via my blogs some years ago have been keeping in touch with me for some time now and have hosted two of the two ceremonies this year to much success ad satisfaction of the customers.

Same marriage or trans-persons marriages are not legal in Jamaica and may not be so for some time as the main hurdles of law reform on buggery and deep homo-negative and phobia driven stigma are on in earnest. Therefore the resistance to gay marriage is well embedded in all that nonsense and is still seen in this modern age as a method to ‘destroy the family’ when the family as we know and entrenched in the Jamaican constitution as between a man and a woman is already destroyed at best or is in serious trouble by those who already have the rights and privilege. If any damage is being done legal straight married couples (some Christians) are already doing a fine job not to mention those in the church and pulpits struggling with their own sexuality and hiding. At least with same sex marriage it provides some stability and maybe some same sexed married couples when the time comes can adopt children. On average for the past ten years end lots of young marriages end in divorce yet fanatical so called Christians who smear the rest of the church miss that fact that is so obvious. Just take a look at the official figures from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica, STATIN:

or

To unhinge the deeply entrenched definition of marriage in Jamaica as between a man and a woman will take lots of time and political will but the LGBT population though flirted with by politicians in recent years does not command the voting block in sufficient numbers or power from a local standpoint to force legislators to make the change; aforementioned fanatics and anti gay voices also still have large sway over a sometimes obsequious following who can be whipped into a frenzy with just one sentence opposing homosexuality as it were.

The spin offs are also clear in my mind, dress makers, small interior decorators, transportation folks and cake makers/decorators all benefit from the business, one cake maker/decorator a staunch Pentecostal was quite OK after she got involved in providing services for one ceremony, she reportedly jokingly remarked send the business come let the people live their lives.

It would be good if and when persons can get married and enjoy the full state recognition and benefits that flow such as legal coverage, housing and health benefits and the settlement of divorces through the courts to share the material assets and so on. Demanding marriage equality is not a zapper to those who already are allowed to marry and as is deceptively brought through in the subtext of anti gay advocacy. The word “equality” is often overlooked by those who oppose the push for same; and the fearmongering that Jamaica will be punished for same or that such goals are too lofty and imposed by foreigners.

Fortunately I am booked for a few ceremonies this year as opposed to the traditional month of June but the problem (if I can call it so) is the priests and pastors normally used are also busy with their own seasonal duties at their home churches; maybe a friendly Justice of the Peace (JP) may have to be identified.

Hope that the nuptials will have a good life after making their vows and live their dreams.

More anon

Peace & tolerance

H

also see older entries:
Buy no rings, you won’t wed; religious fear-mongering on gay marriage & the buggery law continues 

Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship’s continued fear mongering on Christian persecution post buggery law amendment & re-socialization 

When did anyone ask for gay marriage rights in Jamaica when we can't get basic tolerance ......... more smokescreen to deny recognition

There goes gay marriage paranoia again 

More gay marriage paranoia & hijacking of the homosexual debate by fanatics

Lesbian couple celebrate their marriage locally .........

3 gay couples to wed in Negril - Activist says move is an act of defiance

And as for trust, credibility & more on changing hearts & minds

In recent weeks a series of violent attacks to include two LGBT related ones have come to the fore with some unexpected and disturbing outcomes with this ugly business of intimate partner violence, domestic and power differential outcomes have had some major impact, there are at least eight murders of women by men within a three week period with last night’s shooting at the Bahai Principe hotel where a woman was stabbed by a lover (she survived) at a party on property who in turn was shot by a security guard, he died later. The unprecedented amount of domestic disagreement driven murders is strange to say the least as most murder cases are more on male on male side and based on some form of gangsterism often rooted in deep sociological challenges and or as the latest major reason being lotto scamming fallout and gun play; then there are other happenings on the funding front which made the mainstream news cycle, then came that article about the EU’s grant aid in the Gleaner and the supposed non-linking of gay rights and other legal considerations if not imposition of their will in order to qualify for said aid, we however know that said considerations are as real as the air we breathe and are done behind the scenes, pay close attention to how the Justice Minister effectively sang for his supper at the same signing ceremony for the grant aid making grand announcements as preceding ministers when such large support is extended to us.

Comments, if not shouting matches, quarrels online and on air framed as discussion misguidedly have ensued on social media especially since as to how to address this disturbing trend of women being killed for the slightest thing but what is supposed to be a solutions seeking activity seems to have morphed into angry men who call talk shows blasting women’s’ groups and feminists for being too sensitive and that all lives should matter whether they are men or women, some also suggest that some of the women deserve what they get as they should be submissive and are too emboldened and they cause men to supposedly lose it. This is a slight take off from the American ‘all lives matter’ campaign which was to designed to neutralize the ‘black lives matter’ campaign after the series of murders of black men by police and the unfair harassment of African American men more so than other races. But there is something else that has come to the fore which forced me to prepare this post.

A disturbing narrative laced with deep mistrust that has made itself front and center by talk show hosts, public commentators, and print media in letters to the editor and on social media. Some women’s groups and their supporters in particular are the target of the criticisms if not castigation but other human rights groups are also targeted and named as well, this feelings in some circles have always been around which is one of the reasons not much has been achieved on the ‘gay rights’ front in terms of public advocacy and the all important crisis communications; the latter requires so much work and healing it is not funny as if the public or sections of it do not believe that the loudest voices are telling the truth then one can scream from now to the next millennia you won’t change their minds and advocacy will be seen as an imposition on others and that homophobia is justified. Antigay religious fanatics have been the loudest voices leading that charge of hidden hand in the dark seeking to impose some nastiness on the nation and these misguided groups still do have influence on a large group of Jamaicans who seem more servile to the narrative than anything else without analysing what they are being asked to subscribe to or believe.

Subtextual context

Social media has its place and can make reaching larger audiences way easier bearing in mind where we have come from in the days when traditional media refused such as the now ‘friendly’ Gleaner and indeed tabloids as the Star (owned by the new conglomerate of TVJ et al) to publish press releases or carry tolerant and or balanced items on homosexuality but the seeming over reliance on the new media platforms in the present reality often with some appearance of arrogance and barring any real world follow up only further complicates matters; real world action usually via the proverbial ‘workshop’ are done in comfortable settings such as hotels of university campuses well away from the location of the problems or in privilege which feeds the very mistrust that is the obstacle to change and not in the spaces that may require those interventions. As the women’s groups and indeed LGBT ones as well as one new outfit in particular is the main dartboard for the ‘fire’ the subtext says that these newer groups online cannot be trusted as they coin the latest buzzwords, launch hashtags, run online campaigns but have no impact on the ground in the real world. 

They put themselves in line for grant aid funding as they have the foreign grantors in their pockets and attach themselves to causes real or imagined, small or embellished so as to embarrass Jamaica and force us to change our ways and impose foreign values. The latest voice to join the throng in that department was Dennis Broox of Nationwide 90FM as he sat in for Cliff Hughes who was ill on his “Cliff Hughes Online Show” Mr Broox was not so terse as the other commentators such as a certain opposition MP and a man of the cloth who recently returned to radio show hosting on Power 106FM but Mr Broox said that he did not like how some groups are using the whole gender based or intimate partner violence buzzwords to simply get access to grant aid funding which struck me, he never named the groups in question but the usual suspects come to mind such as the 51% Coalition, WE-Change and Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) to name a few as they have developed a bad reputation in the minds of many while launching all kinds of online campaigns they seem not to have any real effect on the ground so the cynicism comes out every time they do. Problem is that these groups are so busy often time on social media that they miss the mistrust formed about them and one wonders sometimes where they find time for real work with real people.

This business of trust or the lack thereof is something that has concerned me from my very entry into rights work and volunteerism especially in the early days of LGBT work since 1996; the hue and cry has and continue to be that gay groups are lying about homophobia to gain foreign support and that so called homophobic murders or violence are simply crimes of passion or lovers’ quarrels gone bad for the most part. 

Such conflations are walls that have not been properly surmounted but when the loudest speakers most of whom do not any real world experience to bring to bear and speak truth to their advocacy it literally rings out in the voice and in the narrative as they carry out such advocacy. In a previous post I shared some continued concerns I have on some of this as some seem to believe that just by changing laws such as the ‘buggery’ all will be well afterwards; it is quite the opposite as that is when the real work will begin if that change in law happens and if the groundwork in terms of establishing trust prior to that then the work is doubly harder thereafter.

It is really said that mistrust is still so high when trust is the glue or supposed to be the key ingredient but with a social media which aids but also poisons the goals and objectives then there are those who get carried away by mirroring, complacency and comfort in social media often unfettered and improperly managed with hashtag campaign that some think can make a universal difference; we must remember that the vast majority of Jamaicans are still not on social media and are locked into deeply comforting and justified old feelings driven by phobia and indeed hatred; real work with real people is still the most effective means of making change, face to face is still the best way especially in a world of permitted if not accepted deceit, falsehoods, bettered or altered versions of oneself on social media it is going to be difficult to penetrate some of that with just plain truth and honesty, so some resort to partaking in the farce to gain acceptance and a following. Besides despite social media’s impact on Jamaica figures show us that it is not the panacea as some want us to believe, yes more and more younger cohort of Jamaicans are using the platforms but the vast numbers of us are not even online with a basic Facebook profile let alone the others. Therefore we can conclude a lot of the campaigns really may only target and reach the converted while the campaigns fly over the heads of who are to be the intended targets.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again hashtags/tweets only last as they are allowed to and are mostly forgotten the moment another one replaces them and become short lived often not revisited as the latest hype takes over and a desire to conform drives the said short lived interest, therefore no learning and retention of what has been dispensed can be of any lasting value in order to effect contemplation and real behaviour change; hashtagging also appears to be becoming monotonous so many persons either un-follow some groups, effectively disconnecting or do not value or have long attention spans to the efforts, a point made by a media manager recently at a forum I attended. The campaign can be major turns off so, persons literally turn off on groups by discontinuing notifications to emails or their phones just to avoid the perceived annoyance. Then there is an appearance of arrogance that comes with the persons behind some of the groups due to the frequency of the posts and tweets, the choice of buzzwords & phrases plus the comments thereafter and again the mirroring phenomenon where the proverbial patting on the back ‘good job’ sentiments. Then there is the feeling by audience members of a prescriptive imperative which may be needed in some respects to force thinking towards change but it may sting of the said arrogance so it is resisted and not seen as an invitation to consider suggestions when they are made.

The very launch of that so called peace initiative in western Jamaica in a so called bid to address crimes lotto scam related was laughable in a sense. The actual launch complete with celebrities who lend their names was not done in the actual communities where it really matters where the killings and fear exist but at a five star hotel where the very residents might not be even able to pay for a night let alone a cupcake if they desired it; yet we expect to make change on the outside or in comfortable zones while expecting results. At least the church groups in March Pen alongside the Peace Management Initiatives PMI folks after those awful killings earlier this year they launched an initiative right there in the heart of the conflict in the geography where it matters most as gangs jostle for power and not at some fancy hotel as one has to be in it to win it not outside and then expect penetration afterwards to solve issues. The hotel launch was heavily criticized which also helps to feed into the mistrust that bedevils advocacy of any sort on social media as well and basically dismissed the moment as a grand show and media hype and that not much will emerge after to begin to adequately address the root causes, it made news as some suggest and I agree that location is everything including how the launch is done; that however is one part, the follow up work is next and how much money is left after salaries and administrative costs are tallied and paid out which usually end up ending and starving the efforts/initiatives in the final analysis sometimes well before the priority or scheduled dates.

The church groups in Montego Bay and other parts in western Jamaica also made sure that the marches and initiatives were done in the very geography where it matters albeit they are seen as hypocrites by some including Christians as they reactionary than proactive and while the marches and outdoor services have a psychological effect some are skeptical that as before we have these cycles, there are marches and then the thrust whittles away as the crime drops and persons find themselves in a false sense of security.

It is going to be difficult to shake off some of this belief that some NGOs and outfits are only there to use issues to enrich themselves via grant aid and with little tangible results to show in the eyes of many that only cements the mistrust in the national psyche. The reality in NGO work is that funding is always a challenge and qualifying for same can be challenging as grantors do not just dole out funds like that but how it is done and how the work appears to the public is not reassuring confidence on a larger scale; that lingering mistrust is often thrown most unfairly at others who do similar work. The very homeless MSM/transgender matter was not spared the castigation as persons like Mutabaruka have asked and are still asking why aren’t popular and powerful gay groups who get shed loads of funding seem not wanting to address their own or words to that effect. That PMI and others highly publicized press conference is another such example with the UK high commission in 2015 on MSM/transgender homelessness albeit the very homeless were absent (yet again) and not given voice with the very member of parliament in attendance yet no help can seem to come to the populations yet still after so many years of grief in New Kingston proper for the past twenty plus years of the problem. Perception is everything in the world of behaviour and legislative change; there is no way around it and truth is slowly dying or is in trouble if we believe change can come otherwise; even if it does it will be fleeting and not long lasting.

Think on these things

Peace & tolerance

H


also see:
Oh to change hearts and minds