1 Caribbean Leaders Blast British Demands To Legalize Homosexuality 4 /99

2 Jamaican Students Beaten at Northern Caribbean University 2/01

3 Gang Violence Escalating in Jamaica 6/01

4 Assessment of Jamaica’s HIV/AIDS Surveillance System 8/01

5 Jamaica at the Crossroads: AIDS and Poverty 11/02

6 Roots of Homophobia in Jamaica

7 Unchanged Laws Delay Efforts to Stop HIV/AIDS 7/02

8 'Homophobes stabbed and slashed me' 10/02

9 Jamaican Gays Flee to Save Their Lives 10/02

10 Banished! Gays forced to live on the streets 11/02

11 Opinion: When did our men get so effeminate? 11/02

12 Web site for Anti-homophobia Petition + More Jamaica Reports (2002)

13 Don't blame the music-In Jamaica homosexuality is a government offence 10/02

14 Book Review: Born Fi' Dead: A Journey Through the Jamaican Posse Underworld by Laurie Gunst

15 Jamaican Bays, Beaches Offer No Safe Harbor for People with HIV/AIDS 1/03

16 Storytelling: Phillip Pike documents homophobia and hope in Jamaica: 'Songs of Freedom' 4/03

17 A Victory and a Reminder 7/03

18 Gays gain ground in Anglican Church (but Jamaica protests) 8/03

19 Gay rights in UK activists seek arrest of Jamaica reggae stars at Mobo awards 9/03

20 Jamaican pastors say 'no' to gay bishop Consecration poses serious philosophical challenges to Christianity 11/03

21 Jamaica: Queer in a Culture of Violence Cops are deadly, politicians corrupt, the people poor, and musicians sing, "Kill the fags, burn the sissies." 11/03

22 Police back campaign to stamp out homophobic reggae lyrics 11/03

23 Gay websites wary of Jamaica 3/04

24 Gay rights activist stabbed to death--Cops say no sign of break-in at gay rights activist's home 6/04

25 OutRaged! British gays use Brian Williamson's death to push agenda 6/04

26 Brutal slaying of activistBrian Williamson spurs an outcry against bigotry 6/04 (Detailed report of the slaying)

27 Beenie Man Show Scrapped in London 6/04

28 Jamaican Police Hunt Famed Reggae Singer In Gay Beatings 7/04

Cox News Service, (http://www.sodomylaws.org/world/united_kingdom/uknews11.htm)

1
Caribbean Leaders Blast British Demands To Legalize Homosexuality

April 23, 1999

By Shelley Emling

MIAMI – There’s a hurricane brewing in the Caribbean, but it has nothing to do with wind or rain.

Caribbean leaders are outraged by a British government proposal to restore full citizenship to its 13 remaining colonies, from the Pacific to the Caribbean--at a price.

Britain has ordered the island commonwealths to ditch the death penalty and bans on homosexuality, and to tighten regulation of offshore banking, the lifeblood of islands such as Bermuda.

The colonies are to bring their laws into line with British practice by the end of the year. And if the colonies’ local governments do not comply, Britain will change their laws for them. "We are committed to seeing it done," said British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.

Cook unveiled the proposal before the British Parliament on March 17 after months of wrangling over the citizenship issue. The Parliament is expected to vote on the plan within weeks. Cook said the move would end the "strong sense of grievance" felt in the territories since their citizenship rights were taken away by the Thatcher government in 1981.
But in the Caribbean, a region that’s historically religious and conservative, the demand to legalize homosexual acts, in particular, has incited controversy.

Earlier this month, the community affairs minister in the Cayman Islands, Julianna O’Connor-Connolly, said the Cayman Islands had a "mandate from God" to retain its ban on gay sex. "We abide by the views of the vast majority of Caymanians who live in a Christian community based on firmly held religious beliefs that homosexuality should not be legalized," the government said in a recent statement. The homosexuality question became a hot-button issue last year when the Cayman Islands prohibited an American cruise ship carrying some 900 gay men from making a one-day stop there.

Later anti-gay activists in Jamaica protested against a scheduled performance by the Village People, a six-member band that became gay icons in the late 1970s, causing the group to cancel their concert.

All this prompted U.S. gay and lesbian groups to boycott some islands – including the Caymans and Jamaica – citing blatant and widespread discrimination.

"We’ve continued to put pressure on these islands because we’ve received reports of gay travelers feeling harassed in certain places," said Augustin Merlo, executive director of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Islands have often found themselves torn between their conservative cultures and a desire to attract tourism dollars from gays and lesbians who represent a $47.3 billion travel market.

Cornelius Smith, tourism minister in the Bahamas, said most Caribbean islands welcome gay tourists, although anti-homosexual sentiments shouldn’t come as a surprise in a region where churches are often more pervasive than bars.
In the Bahamas, which is not a British colony but where homosexuality is also illegal, one pastor has helped organize a Christian group called Save the Bahamas that plans to lobby for stricter sodomy laws as well as a ban on gay cruises.
"It is often said that when the United States sneezes, the Caribbean catches the flu, so when morals decline in the United States, they decline here," said Vaughn Miller, pastor of Nassau’s Resurrection Tabernacle Church.
"Obviously we don’t want that to happen," he added.

David Smith, senior strategist with the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based gay and lesbian lobbying group, said he is stunned by discrimination in the Caribbean and that "recalcitrant protectorates" were acting outside the mainstream.
"Such discrimination against an entire group of people is egregious," he said.

Meanwhile, the conservative American Family Association has applauded the resolve of Caribbean islands that won’t bend to British demands. It is urging its 350,000 supporters in the May issue of the association’s magazine to contact the British Embassy in Washington to voice dissatisfaction with the government’s proposal.

Rex Wockner International News Report (http://gaytoday.badpuppy.com/garchive/world/022001wo.htm)

2
Jamaican Students Beaten at Northern Caribbean University

February 2001

Four male students at Jamaica's Northern Caribbean University reportedly were beaten with wooden planks January 19 by other students who believed the victims were gay. Six students face expulsion -- three who carried out the attack and three who knew of the planned assault and did nothing to stop it, university officials said.

"This incident only adds to the staggering number of human rights abuses meted out against persons solely on the knowledge or mere suspicion of homosexuality," commented the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG).

"While homophobic violence, including assault and murder, continues to be a source of national pride and moral satisfaction for many Jamaicans, the government and police force continue the campaign of legal exceptionalism and tacit approval of these shocking and deeply disturbing crimes against innocent citizens," the organization said.

University President Herbert Thompson reportedly said the victims of the attack also are under investigation to determine if they are in fact gay. Homosexuality is not permitted at the university, J-FLAG quoted him as saying.

J-FLAG can be reached at jflag@hotmail.com.

June 5,2001

3
Gang Violence Escalating in Jamaica

More than 320 people have been killed so far this year in Jamaica, which is suffering from escalating politically-linked gang violence and drug-related crime. The Caribbean nation has a history of violence between gangs linked to political parties, and recent outbursts have seen fighting between groups supporting the ruling Peoples National Party (PNP) and the opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Violence has pitted supporters of the two parties in two different parts of the Kingston, the capital, forcing residents to flee, and schools, businesses and even Kingston Public Hospital to close. Houses have been destroyed by firebombs, and firefighters have needed police escorts just to reach the blazes. The army has been helping police to clear barricades put up by residents, and gunfire and small explosions make west Kingston virtually a war zone.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventon

August 23-28, 2001

4
Assessment of Jamaica’s HIV/AIDS Surveillance System

Bernard M. Branson, M.D.


HIV/AIDS represents a significant problem in Jamaica. Through June 2001, 5,545 cases of AIDS have been reported, of which 450 are pediatric. Based on sentinel surveillance, there may be as many as 40,000 Jamaicans with HIV infection on the island. The Jamaica Ministry of Health has mounted a comprehensive AIDS surveillance system through the National HIV/AIDS Program within the Health Promotion and Protection Division....

For complete Report go to:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Assessment%2Bof%2BJamaica%92s%2BHIV%2FAIDS%2BSurveillance%2BSystem%0D%0D

Positive Nation Magazine (UK) (http://www.positivenation.co.uk/issue84/features/feature5/feature5_1.htm)

November 2002 #84

5
Jamaica at the Crossroads: AIDS and Poverty

Eskil Fagerström visits Jamaica's back streets and villages to find out how this island is coping under the strain of being among the second worst-hit regions in the world to be ransacked by Aids and poverty

All photos by André de Loisted

Nevirapine, three bottles. AZT, 20 bottles, 3TC, 12 bottles, abacavir, 120 tablets. This is the supply of medicine needed each month at Dare to Care, Jamaica's only orphanage for children infected with HIV. This medication costs the orphanage £1,600 every month. "We are far from being able to provide medication for all our children," says Donna Reynolds, coordinator for Dare to Care. "Presently, 21 children live here. We can afford medication for five of them. Two have fully-developed Aids," she explains.

It's an idyllic setting at the orphanage in many ways, until you realise the conditions Dare to Care operates under. In a room children living at the Missionaries of the Poor facilities. next to the playground, Robert, two years old, sits in a push-chair and will, most likely, die in a couple of months. Four tiny four-year old girls share a 'skall bort' (bunk bed). The skin on the girls' arms and legs is covered with rashes and blisters. Dare to Care is funded by, among others, the UN. The children do get to eat nutritious and healthy food, which is not a given thing in Jamaica. The Caribbean is, after all, the area--apart from sub-Saharan Africa--with the highest rate of HIV infection in the world.

Official estimates indicate around 25,000 Jamaicans carry HIV, although some activist groups claim that it could be twice as many. On the islands the virus spreads faster, and it hits women and children to a larger extent. In mainland South America, HIV is transmitted mostly between men who have sex with men, and among injecting drug users (although Brazil has a high number of heterosexually infected).

In the Caribbean and the Central American states of Honduras, Guatemala and Belize, HIV is transmitted predominantly from men to women. As a consequence, in Jamaica about 50 per cent of those infected are women---compared to 30 per cent in the rest of South America. In the Caribbean countries, cases of mother-to-child transmission occur as well, although at least Jamaica has a well-established programme for limiting this.

The main factor fuelling this epidemic in the Caribbean countries is the same as in Africa: poverty. Out of poverty, the mechanism creating the spread of HIV is born, states Verity Rushton emphatically. She's the coordinator of the National Aids Committee, which is an umbrella organisation working on behalf of the Jamaican government to assist NGOs involved in issues of HIV and reproductive health. "And, as always, it is the women who suffer most from the poverty," she continues. Since the days of slavery, the family structure of Jamaica has been unstable. To this day, most poor households are headed by a single mother. "In a situation with a weak economy and extremely high unemployment, creating lasting families is difficult," Verity says.

Later, I meet Zelrita Gayle at the Kingston University Hospital, a 33-year-old woman who is very much the face of HIV in Jamaica. She is a mother of four, lives in one of the sprawling slum areas along Spanish Town Road, and she is HIV positive. Zelrita was infected by her boyfriend in the early 90s. She thinks he was aware that he was infected, but did not bother to protect Zelrita. In 1996 she took part in a research project at Kingston University Hospital. When the participants were screened for a number of diseases, she found out her status. "I was totally unprepared. I did not know anyone else that was infected, had no knowledge of HIV and Aids," Zelrita admits.

Zelrita looks strong and healthy, with beaming eyes. She has being coming to Kingston University Hospital for treatment. Her four children are between 10 and 15 years old. She also gave birth to another daughter in 1996, who died shortly after. Perhaps of Aids, Zelrita does not know. "Today, only my oldest daughter knows that I am infected. The others are too young to have to carry this knowledge," she says. Nor do her neighbours and friends know. But her mother does. She lives in the USA, and the money she sends makes it possible for Zelrita to provide for her children and also, at times, to buy antiviral drugs.

To poor women in Jamaica, ways of supporting themselves and their families are few and far between. This means that many are ultimately dependent on men to survive. And when women are dependent, demanding the use of a condom - or refusing sex at all--is very hard. It's well-known that Jamaican men find using a condom extremely 'un-manly'. Jamaica is also, and this goes for several of the Caribbean countries, a society rich in hypermasculine attitudes and values. A real man has several girlfriends--baby mothers, they are called--and preferably children with all of them.

All in all, there is a toughness in Jamaican society, and this is especially true for metropolitan Kingston--for decades a magnet for the unemployed and landless poor. This roughness is also very evident in attitudes towards gays and lesbians. Homosexuality is extremely despised in Jamaica, and there is still a law in force against 'buggery' or anal intercourse, which is used as a weapon to target and harass gays. The buggery law also functions as a formidable obstacle to those who want to limit the transmission of HIV.

National Aids Committee's Verity Rushton cited this example when I asked her about homophobia: "We are currently prohibited from handing out condoms in jails, even though we know that this is a place where men do have sex with men, and where HIV is transmitted. The violent prejudices in Jamaica against homosexual men mean that many gay men live with women, while continuing to have sex with men in parks."

Another contributing factor is the tourist industry. Jamaica has a reputation as the destination of choice for swingers and sex tourists, and in resorts like Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, prostitution is everywhere: male as well as female. The Jamaican nickname for a male beach prostitute--derived from the preferred hair style of the beach boys--is rent-a-dread. But Verity Rushton insists that Jamaica is at a crossroads.

One way--and this is very plausible--leads to an epidemic of African dimensions.

But there is another road, a road of awakening and a more committed struggle against HIV. "What I find positive, is the weight this issue has been given the last year or two," she says, describing the changes: "Now, HIV is written and spoken about every day in Jamaica. My personal belief is in a stabilisation of the number of infected around two per cent in a couple of years."

The buggery law is coming under steadily intensifying pressure. It seems the long-lived taboo surrounding HIV is lifting. Information and discussion about HIV and sexuality in schools is no longer as controversial as it used to be. Dangerous myths and beliefs--such as HIV spreading through mosquito bites or curing AIDS by having Social worker discusses HIV with schoolboys in Kingston Health promotion stall in Kingston intercourse with a virgin--are receding.

There are still more new cases registered each month. But lately this increase of new infections has been slowing down. And on the international stage, the Caribbean nations as a whole have succeeded in negotiating ground-breaking agreements with the drug companies and the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria to finance cheap treatment and care.

Of course there are those like Father Richard Ho Lung, founder of Missionaries of the Poor, whose orphanage is situated in the slum area of Kingston. He does not agree with Verity's optimism at all, but paints a much harsher picture of his countrymen. "There is a total disregard here for human life," he says. "The way people treat each other, the lack of care shown for the suffering. It is appalling. Old people left starving on the street, children being abandoned by their parents."

What about women like Zelrita Gayle, then? Does she simply belong to the truly disadvantaged in this hard, unforgiving but also vibrantly living society? I remember our conversation on the way to meet her son on an earlier occasion: "Look at me. My children have different fathers. And I do not live together with any of them. In fact, me and my children are not even always together, but I still dream of the future." Like so many Jamaican women, Zelrita is just trying to get by but she has not given up hope or caring for those around her. She said that she tries not to think about her disease. The well-being of her children comes first. Her older daughter wants to become a doctor, her sons dream of being, respectively, policeman and judge. Or perhaps a DJ.

BBC Channel 4, http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/aboutradio4/diary/34.shtml

(2002)

6
Roots of Homophobia


By Rikki Beadle-Blair

'Batty boy'--an abusive term meaning homosexual--has become an all too familiar chant on Britain's streets. The term comes from Jamaica, where violent homophobic lyrics are part of the staple diet of dancehall music. In Roots of Homophobia, on BBC Radio 4 this week, Rikki Beadle-Blair travels to Jamaica where homosexuality remains a crime punishable by ten years hard labour and homophobic murders go largely unpunished.

They say "Burn the Battyman".

Day 1 London
Despite travelling during the off season, the Air Jamaica flight is packed . And raucous - strangers call across the plane to one another like family - addressing elders that they have never met before as 'Mum and Dad'.
A small posse of drunks, clutching cans of Red Stripe and brandishing thick Shanty-town accents, swagger up and down the aisles. Earlier, we'd seen them been escorted onto the plane by uniformed officials. "Are they being deported?" my producer wonders... I'm too busy avoiding eye-contact to answer--lets not get gay-bashed before we even get there.

Later - Montego Bay
As soon the plane doors open the heat rushes in like a living thing made of air--overpoweringly humid and fertile-feeling. I feel welcomed by the smiling sun and warm embracing breeze--should I kiss the runway?
Once through customs, everyone we meet checks out my hair and smiles, "Wh'appen Rasta?" seemingly taking my bleach-blonde hair for religious commitment rather than a fashion statement.
My return smiles are tentative, I'm waiting to witness the hatred and intolerance and the threats that have kept me away for so long--all my life--from my mother country.

Day 2 - Montego Bay
As I work out on the rusty equipment in the rustic gym at the Doctor's Cave Hotel I ponder the events of last night . Just as I was settling down to CNN in my sports socks, there came a knocking at the door. A small, dark-haired white gentlemen of vaguely European nationality blinked at me in vaguely confused wonder and asked plaintively, "Pieter?"
I blinked back, "Sorry?"
He blinked round me into the room, craning his puzzled neck, "Pieter?"
I explained that Peter must be another room, because this was definitely mine.
"And who you are?" He demanded, looking me up and down.
"Not Peter, I'm afraid" I answered, bidding him goodnight as I gently closed the door .
Five minutes later the phone rang.
"You are Jamaican?" the stranger asks softly--and throws me.
"No, er, yes, well, sort of, why?"
"Jamaica is beautiful." he urges, "Jamaica is beautiful."
"Yes, I say."
"Let me visit, yes?" he pleaded. "Let me in.?"
I know how he feels...

So I walked down to the beach this morning, all the kids trundling by in rattly old school buses giggling and pointing at me smiling and waving back. And then I hear it from a passing car. The greeting I've been waiting for. The gentleman caller I've been expecting. "Batty man!" I almost feel relief. It's happened - it's over--they know me, I know them, we know our positions--the Bigot and the Battyman. I'm home.

Day 3 - Montego Bay
Today we met with the local reps from J-FLAG---the Jamaican gay rights pressure group. Howard is a fine-boned and elegant, soft-spoken, delicate-featured , Bob Marley lookalike.

Stories of hate.

He tells us of a friend of his who, once the word hit the streets that he might be gay, had become fair game--so much that when he was at work they stole every thing he had, every stick, every brick, 'even his pisspot.' The police, of course, did nothing. Devastating.

Steve offeres to be Rikki's bodyguard--apparently he's going to need it. When we asked if we could meet this guy, Howard blind-sided us by saying "Sure, he's probably working next door right now!" and nipped out of the building to fetch him, leaving us reeling, only to return moments with the news that not only is the man in question too injured to attend work--but that he has no work to attend; they've had to let him go leaving him homeless, jobless, traumatised and injured.

Day 4 Negril
Just discovered there's a ragga band with a record out right now called Chi-Chi man. 'Chi-Chi' being a quaint name for 'termite' and, it turns out, a hip word for 'battyman' - y'see, both termites and homosexuals 'eat wood.' Cute. And this cute song advocates the burning and killing of Them. Us. This record has been number one for weeks.

This afternoon we're hanging out at the local internet bar when, guess what--the video comes on TV! The barman pumps up the sound system, people gyrate on their barstools and sing along. Seeing my interest, the barman yells over the pumping bass, "Yeh man! That's how we do in Jamaica! We take the battyman queers and burn them!" "Why?" I enquire, disingenuously.

And it was on: David taped everything as the barman, along with several buzzing barflies, lectured me on the pointless evils of homosexuality quoting vaguely from the bible the whole time. If the young manageress's nine year old son turned out to be gay she told me, she would cut his throat.

What if a batty man walked in this moment, I asked. They would run to their cars and fetch their car irons beat him within a inch of his life, came the reply, if he was lucky.
Oh dear...
"What if I told you I was gay?"
"Why?" laughed the barman "You is a battyman?"
Well, he'd asked. What choice did I have?
"Yes."

I was met with gales of disconcerting disbelieving laughter followed by a tidal wave of debate questions but no car irons. A couple of guys offer to be my bodyguard---apparently I'm going to need it.

There's time for a heartbreakingly brief swim in our private bay before motoring back through tropical rain-storms to Montego Bay where we hooked up with John, one of the members of J-FLAG who had volunteered to take us around. I was driving him and his best friend to the bus station, when they suddenly yelled out "Pull over!" I thought somebody was having a fit but it turned out that they'd spotted a buddy on the roadside.

Moments later I found myself surrounded by the stars of the local gay scene--a scene that consists of precisely this: a bunch of cute fem boys and sexy butch boys, and whatever, hanging out and flirting and subtly intimidating passers-by. Just like you always find 'em, all over the world, wherever you go. Queens in their kingdom.

Day 5 Montego Bay
It's a week of firsts! My first Pentecostal service. I thought I'd done this before. I was wrong. I have never never experienced anything quite like this. Three-and-a-half hours of singing, praying, testifying and speaking in tongues in a packed church under eighty degree sun and through hammering raining and ominous thunder. Everyone was warm and welcoming posing for pictures and helping me find the correct passages in the Bible, whether I want to or not.

They talked about the distinction between the sinner and sin etc., and how they would never turn anyone away if they were gay. Attempt to dissuade them, yes, but not turn them away. They seemed sincere, gentle dignified people; they certainly did not react adversely on hearing that I was gay, if anything they leaned closer to me and intensified their gentility.

A Pentecostal view.

Charming. Seductive. If I'd been born and raised among these persuasive folk, where would my sexuality be now? Where would my spirit be? Saved or confused? Repentant or just silent?

Day 6 Kingston
We visit the Kingston HQ of J-FLAG.  The building was overflowing with excitement. It turns out that parliament has suddenly and unexpectedly responded to a year-and-a-half old submission from J-FLAG, entreating them to amend the constitution to protect homosexuals from discrimination.

Fresh off the plane from Johannesburg where she has just recently begun to make a (state acknowledged and constitutionally protected) life with her partner, is the extraordinary Jamaican Donna, graciously articulate, gently imposing, fiercely determined and--most crucially--'out'. She is more free in South Africa.

Donna is to be the face J-FLAG of gay Jamaica. She talks passionately of wanting to feel in her own country the way she is able to feel in South Africa, the first country in the world to include homosexual protections in the constitution. How ironic that a black person would have to turn from Jamaica to South Africa to find equality.

Final day Kingston
I had a frustrating interview today with an academic who seemed to believe that homophobia in Jamaica sprang from the lack of subservient women to bolster the beleaguered male self-esteem--the first person I have interviewed here that I didn't like at all. But that's not really fair as before we could really go at it he was called away and the interview was cut short.

Plus I was already in strange mood. We had just come from a church yard in the depressed area of Mountainview where last April a gay man, caught with a lover in his home had been chased a mob of twenty or so 'Rude Boys' before being cornered in the grounds of the tiny rustic clapboard church where he had run for sanctuary and been shot there in the churchyard amongst the weeds and burned cars. David had bought some flowers and I laid them on the steps of the church until a couple of barefoot and quite fey young men appeared.

We must remember.
We asked if they knew about the young man who had died there--how and why. One of the youths, a cautiously fey young thing who apparently had a bedroom adjacent to the chapel was evasively vague. Did he know what happened? "Not re-a-allyyyy..."

On the card I had written 'We remember'. And we do. We must.

Rikki Beadle-Blair is a writer and film director. He recently starred in Metrosexuality, which he also wrote and directed and which was shown on BBC Channel 4 earlier this year (2002) http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/aboutradio4/diary/34.shtml

Inter Press Service

August 28, 2002

7
Unchanged Laws Delay Efforts to Stop HIV/AIDS

Zadie P. Neufville

KINGSTON, Jamaica

Almost a year ago, the Jamaica National AIDS Committee proposed changing some 20 laws that activists said discriminate against people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. Till now, the government has remained silent on the issue, unwilling to risk a controversy that could affect its bid for a fourth term in office.

Activists in Jamaica, where the HIV virus that can cause AIDS has reached epidemic proportions, point out that their demands would merely ensure that the country's laws conform to international guidelines on HIV/AIDS and human rights.
Health Minister John A. Junor--one of the strongest supporters of the proposal--has said in public that "discrimination and stigmatisation" have resulted in job losses and violence against people battling AIDS.

But the government's opponents have questioned its intentions, and accused it of seeking to decriminalise homosexuality and prostitution on this island nation, where both are condemned as vices. In fact, the J.H. Patterson government has also been sitting on the recommendation of a parliamentary committee that homosexuality be legalised.
Homophobia has been identified as one of the biggest deterrents in ongoing efforts to halt the transmission of the AIDS virus. People living with AIDS do their utmost to hide their condition from their families and communities for fear of ostracism and persecution.

The island's chief medical officer, Peter Figueroa, has admitted that stigma is a major obstacle to treating HIV/AIDS in Jamaica. "It is a given that social stigma and discrimination drive people underground. If we are to address the epidemic we have to be able to accurately gauge the number of HIV cases across the island," he said.

The National Aids Committee (NAC), a quasi government organisation linking government and NGO agencies, commissioned the review of the laws in 2001. Lawyers examined all legislation and recommended changes to those that they found provided opportunities for discrimination of HIV/AIDS high risk groups in particular.

"The findings were that comprehensive legislation must be introduced to deal with the issue of discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS," said Yitades Gebre, head of the national HIV/AIDS programme. But the proposal that seeks to change the 137-year-old Offences of the Person Act to legalise consensual sex between adult males and to decriminalise prostitution has drawn the ire of conservative opinion in the country. Opposition parties have turned it into an opportunity to campaign against the government.

Verity Rushton, head of NAC, has said she is dismayed by the controversy over homosexuality, which has held up all legislative changes. Women and children are at greatest risk if the laws remain the same, she added.
Last year, the number of Jamaican women contracting HIV grew 10 percent, primarily because homosexual males have been forced into being bisexuals because of discrimination, health officials say.

In addition, women are three to five times more likely to contract the virus than men are, and teenaged girls are three times more likely to contract the HIV virus than their male counterparts. A 1999 survey carried out among 2,000 out-of-school teens found that 57 percent of girls had at some time or another exchanged sex for money.

The legislative review has recommended many measures, including striking out quarantine laws that allow the government to isolate persons with serious illnesses. It also has suggested that prisoners be given the right to ask for protective devices like condoms and that provisions be put in place to safeguard confidentiality.

Recommendations have also called for changes to laws that cover social services and housing. In cases of sexual assaults, it recommends mandatory or voluntary testing of both victims and offenders and that the HIV test results of all sexual offenders be made public to "their sex victims or their next of kin".

A survey of 243 adolescents in the 15-19 years age group, found that four percent of the 11 percent who tested positive for HIV had been raped. Another survey of 20 to 49-year-old women showed that between six and 11 percent reported being physically abused because they did not want to have sex.

Under current laws the offender has the right to not be tested, or to not have his HIV status made known to his victim.
"The proposals are about the expansion of the Public Health Act to cover care, support and prevention of HIV/AIDS. It is about care and support for those with the disease and prevention for those without," said Ian McKnight, the head of Jamaica Aids Support (JAS).

But the proposals are far-reaching in a country where being HIV-positive could mean losing one's home, family or even life, due mainly to the threat of violence. As a result, many people refuse to take the HIV test. In fact, one-third of all HIV/AIDS cases are diagnosed after death, says the health ministry.

Health care officials firmly believe that legal change and addressing issues of homosexuality and prostitution are the only ways to develop successful public education campaigns. For instance, sex with prostitutes is responsible for about one-fifth of the new HIV/AIDS cases each year. And officials believe that 27 percent of the estimated 20,000 Jamaicans infected with HIV/AIDS who have not disclosed their sexual preferences, may be homosexual or bisexual males.

In the last year, the ministry of health has developed a National HIV/AIDS Strategic Plan to expand its response to the disease. Rushton has said he believes that amending the laws is central to its success. Jamaica's first AIDS case was reported in 1982. At present, there are 6,038 full blown cases known.

--------------------
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BBC News

October 18, 2002 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2339021.stm

8
'Homophobes stabbed and slashed me'

Homosexuals from Jamaica are coming to the UK to flee oppression and abuse. Recent reports suggested the numbers of gay men and women leaving the Caribbean and looking for a better life in Britain were reaching the hundreds.

The BBC spoke to David--not his real name--who has settled in England after a lifetime of abuse in Jamaica.

"I was working in security and had to use a portable radio a lot. Every time I would get on the airwaves people would shout 'hey, gay boy, get off the radio'. People are constantly at you. I was arrested for allegedly abusing a boy--something I was wrongfully accused of and something I would never dream of doing ever in my life. It was so hard. They locked me up and the policeman told all the other inmates I was gay. I was terrified - gay men get killed in prisons. I was hit, I was slapped. The policemen beat me and hit me so hard I am still completely deaf in my right ear. On the streets I had my throat slashed and when I went to hospital I could not tell them I was gay or they would not have treated me. I was always looking over my shoulder thinking someone was going to attack me or shoot me. It is just not possible to live a normal life in Jamaica if you are gay."

The Jamaican high commissioner declined to comment on David's claims.

From Buzzle.com (http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/10-20-2002-28533.asp?viewPage=1)
By Guardian Newspapers, 10/20/2002

October 20, 2002

9
Jamaican Gays Flee to Save Their Lives

Homophobia runs so deep in Jamaican society that asylum can be the only chance of survival. Every one of David's (story #8 above) scars tells a terrifying story. There is the one where his throat was slashed by a mob that chased him through the streets of downtown...

Every one of David's scars tells a terrifying story. There is the one where his throat was slashed by a mob that chased him through the streets of downtown Kingston, the incident in which his arm was broken in two places, the horrific ordeal during which his right hand was almost severed at the wrist by a blow from a machete.

Then there are the marks on his feet where he was beaten with sticks, the eardrum perforated by a blow from a baton and the emotional scars of the time he was forced to run into the sea close to Norman Manley airport and swim against the tide for four exhausting hours to escape certain death.

All the attacks occurred for the same reason: David is gay.

Last week, it was revealed that David, 26, had been granted asylum in the UK on the basis that homophobia in Jamaica is so severe it represents a serious threat to his personal safety. The fate of gays reveals a deep strain of homophobia in Jamaican society.

In Jamaica, homosexual intercourse is a crime. Buggery is punishable by 10 years imprisonment with hard labour, and any two men caught in a compromising position--the definition of which is left up to individual police officers and in the past has involved nothing more than holding hands--can be charged with gross indecency and sent to prison.

More than 30 gay men have been murdered in Jamaica in the past five years. Last year, one was shot dead as he sought refuge in a churchyard. A few weeks later, a group of university students were almost beaten to death.

The issue of gay rights is one to which few Jamaicans have any sympathy. Homophobia is all but sanctioned by society - often at the highest levels. The slang phrases 'batty boy' or 'chi chi man' are in common usage.

Antoinette Haughton, one of the country's most influential radio talkshow hosts recently attacked gay culture, telling her listeners: 'They want to corrupt our children and tell them it's OK to live immoral and nasty lives.' Last year Jamaica's head of state sanctioned the exclusion of gays from the Boy Scouts: 'These are not the type of persons we wish to be part of the Scout movement,' he said.

Jamaican music often celebrates the beating and killing of gays. In the early 90s, Buju Banton scored with 'Boom Bye Bye', which included the lyric: 'Batty boy get up and run ah gunshot in ah head man'. More recently the band TOK topped the charts with 'Chi Chi Man' - in which the chorus advocates burning gay men.

For many Jamaican men, an allegation of homosexuality is the ultimate slur. Such claims were made against heads of both political parties during the recent election campaign.

In 1997, when prison authorities attempted to distribute condoms to inmates at Kingston's main prison, it led to riots in which 16 allegedly gay men were murdered and 40 more injured.

Jamaica's Prime Minister, PJ Patterson, vowed last year that he would make no changes to anti-homosexual legislation, despite the fact that the law is in breach of human rights regulations.

Speaking from his central Kingston home, Fitzroy, a 28-year-old musician, explains the harsh realities of life as a gay man in Jamaica. 'It's terrible. I can't have peace and freedom like everyone else. If I walk down the road, all I hear is "batty man, him hafi dead, shoot him, slit him".

Jamaica Gleaner, Kingston, Jamaica
(http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com ) http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20021110/lead/lead5.html

November 11, 2002

10
Banished! Gays forced to live on the streets

Patricia Watson, Senior Staff Reporter

More than 30 men who have sex with men (MSMs) are wandering Kingston's streets because they have been chased out of their homes and communities.

Under a commonly practised custom, known as 'b' judgement, a significant number of Jamaica's gay men are being displaced and left to wander the streets aimlessly. So severe is the judgement being meted out to this marginalised group that some are said to be losing their minds and others contemplating suicide.

"It is very hard for us. Right now some persons have to be sleeping on the road, some people go mad because they take it to heart as they cannot go back to their families and home. I know two persons at Bellevue right now. They couldn't take the abuse anymore and just cracked. These are persons who can contribute to society," John Green, a middle-class MSM told The Sunday Gleaner.

Mr. Green who fears for his life would only speak on condition of anonymity. According to estimates provided by the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians All-Sexuals and Gays (JFLAG), more than 30 persons now call the streets home as they have become persona non grata in their communities. Many of these men now seeking accommodation were violently chased from their own.

Violence

Dr. Robert Carr of the University of the West Indies, who has done research on MSMs explained to The Sunday Gleaner that "a great deal of violence comes against people who are socially vulnerable, you find that the community gets tense and they manage the situation by not going home. Many of them become squatters, they have nowhere to go, they are homeless." He also spoke of the unwritten and unspoken condemnation of 'b'judgement', where the edict is "b bwoy fi dead".

'B judgement' is said to be most critical in inner-city communities which are highly intolerant of the sexual orientation. The Sunday Gleaner spoke with MSMs from communities such as Rema and Arnett Gardens, who claim they have to pay dues to get into the communities once they come out. In addition, they are harassed and abused, with some persons even going as far as throwing sewage on them. "I can say that there are a number of things that have been happening to me and to a number of friends, even persons who are associated with me. I can remember living in an inner-city area. I was forced out, not because I was going around and telling people I was gay, but because persons assumed I was, as I was not living with a woman," Bobby Taylor explained.

He said he came home from work one evening and saw men sitting at his gate. They told him he should leave the area as they did not want people like him there. "I decided to report it to the police station in the area. I believed the police station was a safe place for citizens in Jamaica, but when I told them about the problem, they asked me if I was gay and I told them yes. The police blatantly told me he has no time for this, I must go out and look woman to live with and my life would be better in the community.

I went back to the inspector and after telling him my situation he said 'bwoy move from ya so, before yu come tell mi about gunman and where mi can find gun'." Mr. Taylor said he had to leave his house and is now paying rent for another in a safer community in Upper St. Andrew.

The same sort of discrimination occurs in middle class communities, Mr. Green explained. "I remember we were living in (a middle-class community) - about eight of us - and somebody told the police that we were selling coke and had guns. The police raid us one morning about two o'clock. They surrounded the place and there were floodlights all over the place; they searched and searched and couldn't find anything. Afterwards they asked us what so many men were doing there. They asked us if we were 'b men' and we told them yes we were. One of them said we had to leave the area and he should not come back at 6:00 p.m. and find us there. At 6:00 p.m. the police came back and asked us what we were still doing there. They went to the owner of the house and told him that he can't rent us the place as we were 'b men' and dirtying the neighbourhood. The owner of the house gave us 12 hours to move, we were unable to do so and our things were put on the side walk. We knew we could have reported the matter, but we just felt it would not have made any difference. We decided to compromise our rights and leave it at that," Mr. Green said.

Similar stories were gathered from a file on discrimination at JFLAG. One youth noted that he and his partner were constantly abused in the community they grew up in. "One morning, at about two o'clock my friend was at a dance in the community. He was enjoying himself and dancing when suddenly there was a gunshot and a bullet hit my friend in the back of his head. He turned around and they shoot him in his face three more times. He fell and they shoot him as he lay on the ground. They then announced that I was next. Hearing that, I run from the community and have been moving from house to house trying to avoid homelessness."

In addition to being chased from their homes, according to an affidavit from a case filed in the United Kingdom and obtained by The Sunday Gleaner, MSMs face discrimination in employment, housing and access to public facilities and services. "A lot of persons do not want to touch the issue. We spoke to Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ) and they told us blatantly they were not defending any homosexuals, they are not around for that," Mr. Green stated. Susan Goffe of JFJ, however, says otherwise. "We have been firm and clear that where persons are beaten, ill-treated and killed based on their sexuality, it is an abuse of their human rights. We have heard of police victimisation and that is completely wrong. There is no support for that, it is a criminal act and needs to be dealt with," she said.

However, as an organisation, she made it clear that there is no position on the legislative aspect of homosexuality. She says the organisation takes a similar stance on the death penalty. Public Defender, Howard Hamilton noted that he will be contacting a constitutional lawyer to examine whether there are constitutional violations taking place against MSMs. "The office has been established to protect the interests of the weak, dispossessed and marginalised of our society and we will never close our doors to anyone who falls into this category and is suffering hardship or discrimination," Mr. Hamilton said, explaining that "like those persons infected with HIV and discriminated against, I would welcome the opportunity to make a test claim, if persons are willing to come forward."

He stated that he is currently preparing a case file on behalf of an HIV positive person. A relative of the now deceased individual is bringing the case. "The same may be possible for homosexuals, where somebody may be able to bring the case on their behalf," Mr. Hamilton explained.

Jamaica Gleaner, Kingston, Jamaica ( http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com )
(http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20021110/out/out2.html)

November 11, 2002

11
Opinion: When did our men get so effeminate?

By Claude Mills, Staff Reporter

Last week, I was stuck in traffic on Lyndhurst Road when I saw what looked like a young khaki-clad school boy waiting at a bus stop. I was forced to do a quick double take as I snailed by in traffic as the 'male' looked quite suspect. In fact, I think he needed a reclassification of his gender.

This gender-bender had in two pairs of earrings, his hair was braided back in cane rows, and he had bleached his face to a dirty pinkish hue, like a side of pork gone rancid. But the coup de grace was his eyebrows; he had shaved his original eyebrows and then pencilled them in a sharp upside down V (a decidedly female practice) over his eyes. I wondered aloud what his mother would think if she saw her daugh... - sorry - son like that. Maybe she would just smile, a mother's love, after all, is unconditional.

Maybe I've been in cold storage or something, but when did our men get so effeminate? Did it begin in the 1980s when men began wearing earrings, always justifying the practice by saying it made them look cuter? Or maybe you've heard the gem about how our African ancestors sported them, or that the pirates had scuttled numerous ships and slashed throats with gold loop earrings dangling from their lobes?

Whatever the reason, the earring thing took off but there was a trick to it. If it were in the right ear, you were a homosexual, so most men pierced the left earlobe and that was it. But now, the fig leaves have fallen, both ears do the trick.

In 1996, I remember going to a stage show, and cringing in mortal horror as Elephant Man and the Scare Dem crew called themselves 'dainty men' as the females in the crowd roared their approval. After a while, I figured it out, what women really wanted were tight-pants wearing 'sensitive thugs'. The outward sissification of men is the ultimate triumph of women who have been imploring men to get in touch with their feminine side for years: the earrings, the ponytails, the long fingernails, the anklets, and the bangles.

Some men are really 'woman-hounds' and will do anything to make themselves more attractive to the opposite sex. And if you listen to them talk, they do all this stuff in the hope of getting more women in the sack. But while women might say they find men attractive when they look more like them, inside, they are laughing their heads off at these guys.

Earlier this year, a young lady I know pierced both earlobes of her 18-month-old son because 'it made him look cuter'. While I hesitate to call her evil, she is a bit conflicted. As much as women have needed to tap into their masculine side to raise and financially support families without the help of males for the past couple of decades, men need to get in touch with their more sensitive, 'feminine' side. But I believe some men are carrying it a little too far, especially the males who hail from the ugly ghettos of the Corporate Area.

A lot of today's thug males look kinda effeminate, but they still do the alpha male stuff like penis-grabbing, bad-word-cussing, female objectification, gun-toting and general bad behaviour. It's all very confusing. Hence, when I go to a dance today, I don't stare or snicker at the questionable looking males, that could be hazardous to my health. I just pretend I don't see them.

I am loath to use the words "masculine" and "feminine," because really, what do those words really mean? What is the measure of a man in today's world? The size of his penis? The number of his concubines? Musculature? His ability to afford a gas-guzzling SUV? Is he someone who stands up to his responsibilities? What is a man? There is a seething self-contempt that runs like a fault line through the minds of the men and women of this island, that's why they bleach their skins. They hate themselves so much they would rather become 'freakshows', or monsters because it is a more palatable alternative to what they are now - nothing.

According to psychologists, in young men, a false self begins to emerge to counteract such intense emotions as fear of physical disintegration or the dread of psychological humiliation. The false self is reinforced in many cultures such as ours by positive approval and social value assigned to emotional detachment in men in favour of their pursuit of power and wealth. They grew up in an era where women have made steady advances in all active arenas, and been told by the mass media that women like 'sensitive men'.

Entertainment and movies drive home the point with baby-faced male leads, and the popularity of musicians like Lenny Kravitz who has so many body piercings, he'd never dare go outside in a bad electrical storm. But while today's young men may look more effeminate, they are still emotionally detached, ruthless, and psychologically crippled young men. They have achieved the trappings but not the substance of the argument of the 'sensitive man'.

The problem, according to Colin Channer, is lack of balance. He has an article in the May 2002 issue of Essence which reads: "The failure of men is our failure to acknowledge and engage our female self. Male and female are incomplete without the other. Between us are degrees of life and death: the healer and the killer, the nurse and the warrior, the forgiver and the punisher - mom and dad.

To live an authentic life is to explore the range of possibilities between each opposing self and to create a way of being, an original life narrative authored from a place of self-knowledge and truth. The problem with women will not be solved until men imagine their way into wholeness." Just last week, one of my friends told me: "Mi a look a woman whe can support me, preferably one whe mi can drive up har car." "Mi want a sugar mommy." Alrighty then. That's one more friend to strike off my Xmas list. . You can e-mail me at cmillsy@yahoo.com

12
Web site for Anti-homophobia Petition + More Jamaica Reports

On June 5, 2001, the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (JFLAG), made a historic presentation to the Jamaican Parliament (the Joint Select Committee on the Charter of Rights) to make the case for protecting Jamaicans from discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation. Readers may be aware that the Jamaican Constitution does not provide protection from discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation.

JFLAG believes that sexual orientation "ought properly to be brought under the protective umbrella of the anti-discrimination clause with our Bill of Rights since gays, lesbians and bisexuals are being marginalized by society, and are not being afforded the rights of legal equality and privacy by our government". 

On behalf of JFLAG, we would greatly appreciate it if you could sign this petition to be presented to the Jamaican government. We want to show them that the outside world is concerned about what is happening to our brothers and sisters in JA.

The petition can be signed at: http://www.asanteuk.net/Gay_Rights/petition.htm

The site also has more news reports about homophobia, violence and intolerance in Jamaica.

The Guardian, London, UK

Friday October 18, 2002

13
Don't blame the music-In Jamaica homosexuality is a government offence

by Dotun Adebayo


Now that two gay Jamaican men have been granted asylum in Britain, we can expect many more such applications from the Caribbean island famous for reggae, good ganja and zero tolerance of homosexuality. Jamaica, where homophobes will fling rocks first and ask questions later, is one of the most dangerous places in the world for gay men and women.

But they are not entirely to blame. They take offence at homosexual behaviour not least because in Jamaica it is an offence - punishable by 10 years' hard labour. Yet, in response to the asylum offer, a spokesman for the Jamaican high commission said he was "unaware" that gay persecution was a "major problem" on the island.

So how can we make them aware? Not by protesting about a music industry backslap in Canary Wharf. Peter Tatchell may not like the fact that in Jamaica he would be regarded as a batty boy, a yatty man or a chi chi man. But he was mistaken if he thought that picketing the Mobo awards was going to change the homophobia that attaches itself to the ragga side of reggae music.

The root of the problem lies in the Caribbean. And I doubt Tatchell has the balls to go to Jamaica shouting: "I'm glad to be gay." Such is the mystique of homosexuality among most Jamaican youths that the first thing many schoolboys on the island want to know from overseas visitors is "what does a batty man look like?"

After a popular record, Chi Chi Man by TKO (later picked up by the opposition and used as its campaign song in the run-up to this week's Jamaican elections), suggested that the island was being run by an oligarchy of closet gays, Prime Minister PJ Patterson had to go on national radio to declare that he never had been and never would be a homosexual.

Gays living in Jamaica have to keep a very low profile. There have been incidents of people being stoned to death merely on suspicion of being gay. When a gay group proposed a march through the centre of Kingston to protest against homophobia, the machete factories on the island ran out of stock. The march was quickly abandoned.

Homophobia in reggae music continues unabated. It's not only accepted but expected of a ragga MC. Ten years ago, ragga MC Shabba Ranks was asked on British TV to show his hand on the issue. Shabba took out his bible and began quoting scriptures, knowing that he could not return to Jamaica otherwise.

On that occasion, Tatchell called for Shabba Ranks' music to be banned on Radio 1. It was, and the young Jamaican, who was then embarking on what would have been a lucrative career, disappeared from view, though at home in Jamaica he was hailed as a hero.

Boom Bye Bye, the Buju Banton hit that advocates the murder of homosexuals, still sells by the bucketload. Buju himself almost lost his life in Jamaica after reports that his US record company had issued an apology on his behalf to the gay community. Buju's response was to deny publicly that he had ever, or would ever, apologise to a batty man.

Today, ragga music is more homophobic than ever. Jamaican reggae MCs Beenie Man and Bounty Killer narrowly avoided bloodshed between their opposing camps only after Beenie Man explained on radio that he had referred in a song to the Killer riding "on a h-o-r-s-e", and it wasn't his fault that the word is pronounced "a-r-s-e" in Jamaican dialect.

Tatchell would be better off taking the stance of Boy George, one of several gay men and women attending the Mobo awards. Boy George understands that it's not about reggae, not about Jamaicans and not about black people. Most of all, it's about the government that presides over the hatred. Not so long ago, here in London, police officers went posing as gay men in bars to arrest any man who solicited them. Back in those days, white British TV comedians would refer to gay men as "poofs", "queers" and "bum bandits" - and "queer-bashing" was rampant, if not acceptable. But the government changed its stance.

Until a Jamaican government has the bottle to do the same, there isn't going to be much love for gay guys on the island. Until a Jamaican government stops imprisoning homosexuals and scraps all anti-gay laws, men and women will continue to be murdered for their sexual orientation. Tatchell should be addressing his campaign to the Jamaican high commission. Anything that might hurt the tourist industry will make the government acutely aware that gay persecution is a major problem in the country.
Dotun Adebayo is a broadcaster, publisher and music critic. E-mail: dotunadebayo@hotmail.com

14
Book Review: Born Fi' Dead: A Journey Through the Jamaican Posse Underworld by Laurie Gunst

From the Publisher

Among the ethnic gangs that rule America's inner cities, none has had the impact of the Jamaican posses. Spawned in the ghettos of Kingston as mercenary street-fighters for the island's politicians, the posses began migrating to the United States in the early 1980s, just in time to catch and ride the crack wave as it engulfed this country. Feared and honored for being "harder than the rest," these Jamaican cocaine syndicates laid claim to their new American territory with outlaw bravura and a ruthlessness that was immortalized in song; the raw dance hall music born of their world defined "gangsta" culture for a generation of angry sufferers in Jamaica, America, and England. The posses are part of the Third World diaspora that is changing the face of the United States, yet they live in a world few Americans will ever know. The voices of their young soldiers go unheard, silenced early by the guns that both distinguish and destroy their lives. They see themselves as legendary desperadoes in the best Hollywood tradition, taking their aliases from the spaghetti-western gunfighters and Mafia dons whose style they revere. Drawn to the posses by their fusion of Wild West fantasy and brutal reality, Laurie Gunst spent a decade moving with the gang members between Jamaica and America. She slowly became a player in her own story; entangled in the web of the gunmen's lives and those of the law enforcement officials who tracked them. "You are not here to say who is good and who is bad," one Kingston ally warned her. "You should only be committed to reality." Born Fi' Dead is her portrait of the posses, the first account of Jamaica's international gangs.

From The Critics

Publishers Weekly
Nothing encapsulates the sad story of 20th-century Jamaica better than the name the island's poor give themselves-``sufferers.'' Their suffering is the result of political battles between left and right, the latter supported by the U.S. The posses-street gangs made up of very poor people brought up on American westerns, kung fu and Stallone and Schwarzenegger movies-were converted into political strong-arm groups; the warfare reached its high point in the election of 1980, with about 800 political killings. Many posse members then emigrated to the U.S., where they channeled their violence into the crack trade. Gunst, who taught at the University of the West Indies in Kingston and wrote her doctoral dissertation on Jamaica, explores the line between the underworlds of New York and Kingston and shows just how ill-fated the island has become. The title is island patois for ``born but to die.'' (Mar.)

Library Journal
This book's title comes from an anonymous poem and refers to the high odds of violent death among Jamaican gang members. Gunst, an academic who has taught in Jamaica, combines a history of Jamaican gangs with an account of her own personal experience with gang members. Tracing the origins of the gangs from the rivalry between two political parties in Jamaica, she then follows their evolution into drug-dealing on the island and in New York City. Through her narratives of her meetings with gang members, politicians, and other local people, Gunst presents a vivid picture of the unique culture of the gangs-called posses after the movie Westerns that strongly influenced their culture. She allows several members whom she befriended to tell their own stories, often in their own patois. These tales are inevitably tragic, filled with early deaths from drugs or guns, political exploitation, racism, and poverty. The book's structure is somewhat disjointed, following Gunst's peregrinations between the United States and Jamaica. This, along with the sheer number of characters, makes the story difficult to follow. Nevertheless, this remains a moving portrait of wasted lives caught in a culture of violence and self-destruction. Recommended for public and academic collections.-Ben Harrison, East Orange P.L., N.J.

Customer Reviews

Mike (kabisch@ix.netcom.com), a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, November 18, 1999,

I was a US Peace Corps volunteer who taught in some of the inner city communities mentioned in Born Fi Dead. Her book was the most usefull text I have read on the topic. It provided me with answers on why and how the communities run the way they do. Jamaica's inner city communities are some of the toughest in the world.....places such as Rosetown, Rema, Jungle, and Back To. Laura gives a voice to those who have gone unheard, the street kids, who unlike many American kids, have little choice but to take up the gun. Even if you are unfamilar with the Jamaican scene this book will blow your mind.

From (http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/aids/stern01282003.html)

28 January, 2003

15
Jamaican Bays, Beaches Offer No Safe Harbor for People with HIV/AIDS--$15,000,000 from the World Bank but no Anti Retro Viral access

By Richard Stern, Director Agua Buena Human Rights Association

Seven minutes from Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, Jamaica there is a somewhat run down house on a hill with a breathtaking view of the $150/night luxury hotels on the beach below and of the Cruise ships docked across the bay. I spent Wednesday, January 22nd, 2003 in that house talking with people who are Living with HIV/AIDS and a small staff of dedicated people from a local NGO who support them.

These people are dying. Of about 25 who showed up on that Wednesday to see a volunteer Doctor who comes every two weeks, only one had access to anti- retroviral medications. Several were so sick with wasting syndrome and other opportunistic infections that they had to be helped up and down the stairs to see the Doctor. Jamaica's response to its AIDS epidemic seems to have been too little and quite late. Max, a 44 year old, the only member of the group who could afford anti-retrovirals (ARVs), told me that when he was seen at the local hospital a nurse refused to take his blood pressure after she opened his medical file and saw his diagnosis. Max buys his medications from LASCO, a local importer of CIPLA drugs which sells him a monthly cocktail of Duovir (AZT + 3TC) and Nevirapine for $120 US per month, about four times what CIPLA charges for the same cocktail if it is purchased in India. Gladys, 28, told me how her she had begged local hospital officials and then private Doctors to get medications for her five year old daughter Emily who was becoming more and more ill everyday.

They told her to first to get a CD4 test for the little girl and she did not have the $100 necessary for this. The only CD4 testing in Jamaica is available at the University of the West Indies, Viral load testing is not available. Emily died November 17th. It is not clear why CD4 tests in Jamaica costs $100 when in many countries in the region the cost of this test is under $30 per person. It also not clear why Doctors needed a CD4 test in order to begin treatment with an obviously critically ill child. Presumably it is because they had no pills to treat her with. Joel, 26, who could not have weighed more than 90 pounds, is a former taxi driver alternately cried and slept while waiting to see the Doctor. He said he is lucky because his father cares for him, while many others have been thrown out of their houses. The Jamaican government does not provide anti-retroviral medication to any of the estimated 4500 people with AIDS who need treatment at this moment. 25,000 are estimated to be HIV+, and three people die each day of AIDS.

The population of Jamaica is 2.8 million. Perhaps 150 out of the 4500 who need treatment have access to ARVs because they buy them privately or because they receive donated medications or have contacts with relatives in the U.S. Government officials told me the Health Ministry has no budget for anti- retroviral purchase. Ironically a $15,000,000 loan from the World Bank to Jamaica for AIDS related activities may be inadvertently delaying anti-retroviral access in Jamaica.

Dr. Yitades Gebre of the National AIDS Program told me that the AIDS Program is currently focusing on how to utilize the World Bank money for prevention programs as well as for capacity building and implementation of infrastructure related to treatment access. But overwhelmed by its own incapacity to effectively absorb and utilize these funds, the government of Jamaica did not even submit an application to the second round of the Global Fund, last year, and the World Bank will not permit its funds to be used for anti-retroviral purchase.

So the government of Jamaica is stuck with an excess of potential infrastructure, but no funds for actual purchase of medications. The victims of this unusual "embarrassment of riches" appear at this point to be People Living with HIV/AIDS who need medications now. World Bank money must also be repaid at some point whereas Global Fund money is allocated to countries without any need for repayment, although the Global Fund does require that sustainability of treatment be built into National AIDS programs.

In his speech at the special United Nations Special General Assembly on AIDS(UNGASS) on June 27th, 2001, Jamaican Health Minister John A Junior stated that "we welcome the proposed establishment of a global health and HIV/AIDS fund and hope that the allocation of resources from the Fund will not be subject to bureaucratic impediments which would limit timely and adequate disbursements to those worst affected..." We tried to reach Minister Junior to find out why Jamaica is one of the very few developing countries which has not even submitted a proposal to the now established Global Fund, but he was unavailable for comment.

This reporter discussed with Dr. Gebre other issues related to the situation of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Jamaica who need ARV treatment now. One trained physician (Dr. Gebre acknowledged that there are several physicians in the country with extensive experience in utilizing anti-retrovirals,) can easily treat up to 100 people per month or possibly more, especially if CD4 testing is available. The government will be using some of the world bank money to purchase a CD4 machine, thereby lowering the cost of the test. The trained physicians could train others. In "resource poor settings" what is needed for effective treatment are trained physicians and, ideally CD4 testing. Funds are now needed to purchase medications at the best available prices, and there is currently no budget approved by the government for anti-retroviral purchase, except for prevention of mother to child transmission. The World Bank Loan will undoubtedly enable Jamaica to eventually implement many excellent programs, but for those who need anti-retrovirals at this moment it appears that there is no plan in place. Another argument in favor of anti-retroviral purchase is the deteriorated state of the public hospital system in Jamaica.

Those patients who are treated, rarely receive medications for opportunistic infections and the overall capacity of these hospitals to meet their medical needs is minimal. With anti-retroviral access, a high percentage of patients could by-pass the public hospital system --- if their treatment is successful, the need for hospitalization declines dramatically. They also could then return to the labor force, and their children would not be orphaned, thus avoiding an additional burden placed on the government. But Dr. Gebre gave no specific date as to when anyone with AIDS in Jamaica would actually receive ARV therapy, although indicating that the government is hoping to begin treatment for several hundred people this year. He pointed out that a country wide program is already in place for prevention of mother to child prevention.

He said the government plans to eventually have four AIDS clinics in place which will provide comprehensive services for People with AIDS. Jamaica may at some point be able to apply for funds for a small number of anti- retroviral medications if the regional Caribbean proposal submitted by "CARICOM" (Caribbean Community) to the Global Fund, is accepted, but, according to Dr. Gebre CARICOM only has requested enough funds to purchase anti-retrovirals for four to five thousand people, which must be divided between all of the CARICOM member states. As many as 100,000 people currently need anti-retrovirals in the entire region. If the CARICOM proposal is accepted by the Global Fund Board, currently meeting in Geneva, Jamaica must then submit a proposal to CARICOM to receive its share of funds, but because of the regional situation, it seems likely that available funding from this particular source for medication purchase would only be sufficient for perhaps 200-300 people during 2003.

A CARICOM official in Guyana confirmed that the Global Fund proposal submitted by the Agency includes $4.9 million yearly for purchase of medications for the entire 29 country regions during the next five years. At the current average cost of $1,400 per year per person. this amount would only cover treatment for about 3500 people yearly from the region, in which there are an estimated 500,000 people who live with HIV/AIDS, at least 100,000 of whom need treatment now. So Jamaica's share of funding for treatment, if and when the CARICOM proposal is approved by the Global Fund, is unlikely to cover more than a couple of hundred people per year, as Dr. Gebre indicated. Jamaica has benefited from price reductions resulting from the WHO/PAHO sponsored accelerated access negotiations. A cocktail combining Glaxo's Combivir and Merck's Indinavir costs $1622 per year and most other cocktails are available for between $1400-$1800 yearly as a result of these negotiations.

Besides Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, Abbot and Boehringer Ingelheim participated in this process. A private pharmaceutical company called LASCO is importing generic products sold by CIPLA. This reporter obtained a copy of the price list for LASCO products if purchased "wholesale." The combination of Duovir (AZT +3TC) sells for $600 yearly and Nevirapine sells for $432. Thus a cocktail of AZT + 3TC + Nevarapine costs $1032 yearly per person, while CIPLA sells the same cocktail to LASCO for about $360 per year. LASCO's mark-up is roughly 300 percent. (The same cocktail is sold by LASCO for $1420/year if purchased individually!) This author has traveled extensively in the Latin American/Caribbean region and has supported and encouraged the registration of CIPLA products. But it is dismaying to see the results of CIPLA registration, as this case illustrates. The purpose of my visit to Jamaica was to do a series of workshops related to advocacy and empowerment of People Living with HIV/AIDS as well as a diagnostic assessment of the situation related to Anti-retroviral access. One of the workshops involved a group of women living with HIV/AIDS who are members of "JN+" the Jamaican Network of Positive People. Several hours of intensive interaction revealed the degree of stigma and discrimination faced by People with AIDS in Jamaica.

One woman explained it: "we would like to get involved in advocacy, but we are afraid. We could be kicked out of our houses, and what about our children at school? What will happen to them if people find out we have AIDS?" Another woman told me that a landlord went so far as to take the roof off of a house in order to "evict" a family of People living with AIDS that had refused to leave. There is no National AIDS law in Jamaica, and no law against discrimination. Aside from the other problems with the public hospital system, it appears that stigma and discrimination is commonplace.

In another workshop, I was told that at Kingston General Hospital people with AIDS are segregated into a back corner, and routinely ignored by nursing staff. If they have no family to visit them, they will live in appalling conditions and are often discharged when they are still severely ill. NGO's go to the hospital on an emergency basis to try to find space in hospices for those who are being asked to leave.

The stigma suffered by gays and lesbians does little to improve attempts to combat the epidemic. Gay sex, even among consenting adults, is still illegal under "buggery" laws enacted when Jamaica was a British Crown Colony. Prosecution may occur for public as well as private acts, and when arrests are made, names and addresses are routinely published in newspapers. This situation reduces the opportunity to do prevention work in the gay community which remains largely underground. "Batty Boys," as gay men are referred to, are subject to violent attacks as well. According to Jamaican scholar Thomas Glave, bottles of acid have been used in attacks on gays. Perhaps the most fundamental arguments for providing anti-retroviral access in developing countries is that it substantially reduces stigma and discrimination thereby enhancing prevention efforts and reducing costs associated with the epidemic. By providing People with AIDS with adequate medical treatment, the government is giving a message to the entire population that the lives of these individuals are worth something and their rights in the society deserve to be protected.

Visibility is increased and the subject of AIDS is no longer taboo. Countries much poorer than Jamaica are providing ARV's with dramatically positive results. Dr. Peter Piot, Director of UNAIDS, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director of WHO, and Dr. Joep Lange, President of the International AIDS Society all issued urgent calls for massive and rapid scaling up of anti-retroviral access in developing countries at the Barcelona International AIDS conference last July. Jamaica has a large contigent of AIDS experts from the International Agencies of Cooperation, including PAHO, UNICEF, UNDP, as well as CARICOM, working full time on the epidemic. I spoke to several of these same experts who are well aware of what is happening in Jamaica.

Yet, concrete solutions congruent with the goals expressed by Drs. Piot, Brundtland, and Lange seem miles away from the pristine shores of Jamaica. It would also appear that the situation of the CARICOM Global Fund proposal may not have been well coordinated with other countries, if so few of the region's 100,000 or more people with AIDS are going to benefit by receiving treatment access. Technical advisors could have made it clear to all of the 29 member countries that the amount of money requested is far below was is needed to cover anti-retroviral access in the region. Or perhaps this was made clear, and Jamaica simply did not act.

Richard Stern is Director of the Agua Buena Human Rights Association San José, Costa Rica Tel/Fax 506-234-2411 rastern@racsa.co.cr www.aguabuena.org

Metro Weekly (glbt), Washington, DC ( http://www.metroweekly.com)

April 17, 2003

16
Storytelling: Phillip Pike documents homophobia and hope in Jamaica: 'Songs of Freedom'

By Randy Shulman

It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough for Phillip Pike to be a lawyer fighting for human rights. It wasn't enough to be a black gay man living in Canada. It wasn't enough. There was personal journey to be embarked on. Stories to find. And a connection with an ancestry that started on a Jamaican plantation, where his great-grandfather worked as a slave. So Phillip Pike put down the law books and took up the video camera. In five years of traveling to and from Jamaica, Pike found himself capturing the stories of gays and lesbians who live in a society that is known for its extreme homophobia.

Most of the participants in Songs of Freedom, the resulting 75-minute documentary opt to keep their identities concealed - their faces blurred beyond recognition. But the stories they tell have a familiar ring - a ring that is sometimes unsettling, a ring that is sometimes triumphant. Though scrappy around the edges, Songs of Freedom remains a stark and, at times, brutally honest experience. As it moves from tales of coming out to stories of abuse arising from one of the most virulently homophobic countries in the world, it draws you into a gay existence that, in Washington, you cannot begin to imagine. Songs of Freedom film will have its Washington premiere at Visions Cinema next Thursday, at a one-night-only event at 8 p.m. Pike, who lives in Toronto, Canada, took time to discuss the genesis of the project, as well as his own personal journey as a filmmaker who found a society of gays ready to have their voices heard.

METRO WEEKLY: What prompted you to go into documentary filmmaking?

PHILLIP PIKE: I actually started my professional career as a lawyer, and in 1998 I was sort of at a crossroads in my life, thinking about what's coming up next. I was visiting a friend in Arizona and mentioned to him that I had applied to go to grad school with the aim of teaching law, and he sort of very gently suggested to me that I may want to think about doing something creative. I thought about that for a little while, and I got up one morning shortly after that and just decided that, yes, I was going to make a film. So after that I began to think about what I needed to do to make it happen. So I took some courses in video production.

MW: How did Jamaica enter the picture?

PIKE: I was born there, but migrated to Canada with my family in 1971 or thereabouts, I was about nine years old. By 1998 I was 36 and wanted to go back to Jamaica. I felt there was something missing in my life - here was this country where I was born and where I spent the first nine years of my life but I really didn't know a lot about it beyond what everybody else knew from music or newspapers. The two things sort of coincided in December of '98. I bought a plane ticket and I bought a video camera and I set out to Jamaica. And I really didn't know what I was going to do or how I was going to do it, I just knew I had my plane ticket and a camera. [While in Jamaica], I read that an organization called JFLAG - the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays, had just launched itself publicly. I made contact with them, and decided that my film was going to be about the life experience of gays and lesbians. I wanted to know how gay people were living their lives on a day-to-day basis in this country that has this reputation of a very virulent strain of homophobia. And I wanted to know like, what do you do? How do you get up in the morning, how do you live your life, how do you go to school? Just sort of basic human day to day sorts of things. When I began to talk to people about that, I was surprised at the range of experiences. I was surprised that some people were able to come out to their family and then survive long enough to sit down and talk to me about it in interview.

MW: Most of the people interviewed had their identities concealed. But there were several who chose to speak very openly and frankly on camera. Larry Chang, for instance.

PIKE: Well, I think Larry, through a combination of different circumstances, just got to a point in his life where he really didn't care anymore. He just decided that he needed to live his life out in the open. He has actually left Jamaica, but even while he was there, my understanding is that he was living his life quite openly.

MW: What about "Bobby," who speaks of the atrocities performed on gays who are arrested and sent to prison? I was a little surprised that he chose to show himself fully.

PIKE: That's an interesting story, because I was quite concerned about his safety. The segment was shot in June of 2000. I ran into him on about two or three other occasions when I went back to film, and I kept on asking him, "Do you still want to do this without your face not concealed?" And he said, "Yes." He was a very street smart kind of person, so I thought, okay, and went ahead with using him in the film. When we had the premiere in Toronto back in January, someone who was sitting next to me leaned over and said, did you know that Bobby has died? As it turns out, he died of AIDS in October of 2002. And so, since that time, the thought has occurred to me that perhaps he knew at the time we were filming, back in 2000, that he was ill, and perhaps in a way this was his gift to the community. Because he says a lot of things which are very crucial and important, especially for it to be said by someone who doesn't have their face camouflaged.

MW: Bobby's is without doubt the most disturbing and upsetting passage in the film, just the horrors that he recounts. And yet, he recalls them in such a placid, gentle manner, it kind of throws you.

PIKE: I think that is part of life in those circumstances. When you live in that environment for so long, you actually become detached from the reality around you in order to survive psychologically. I think that's what we're seeing in him.

MW: Do the police go out of their way to arrest known homosexuals without probable cause?

PIKE: It's hard for me to say. All I can share is the experiences I've heard about. I think what happens is if word gets out that you're gay, chances are you're going to be harassed. So they're going to pick you up, they're going to try to pin stuff on you that under normal circumstances they may have looked the other way on. A lot of the police officers themselves, in order to cover up their own sexual orientation identity, are actually some of the most brutal harassers, just because it's a way of masking their own sexual identity.

MW: How did you choose your subjects?

PIKE: A lot of people have said, "Why didn't you do man in the street interviews with the average Jamaican?" And while that's interesting, I think there will be other films to be made on the subject which will perhaps include that. But I really wanted this to be about personal stories - good, personal stories from the heart. I wanted to have a good cross section of people - Larry is a Jamaican of Chinese descent, for example - and I tried to get a cross section of class. And it was a very important thing to have gender balance. But most of all it's the people who are good storytellers who made it into the finished film.

MW: You live in Canada, we live in Washington, and in both cities, we tend to take open gay life pretty much for granted. How did you feel, as a gay man, encountering so many people who have to live their sexual lives underground?

PIKE: It's hard for me to see it as all bad or all good, right? It's a real mixed bag. But I think life is full of contradictions. Certainly, at a very basic level, life is difficult in Jamaica in general. Economically it's hard if you're a young person to find certain opportunities, it's hard to get a job, to retain a job. Friends of mine always jokingly say to me, "When you're in Toronto you can sort of take a holiday from homophobia, and when you go to Jamaica you can take a holiday from racism, right?" It's like, what do I want to deal with today? Do I want to deal with homophobia? Well then, if I don't want to I'll stay in Toronto. Do I want to deal with racism? Not today, well I'll go to Jamaica. A lot of gay men and women are fleeing Jamaica in droves, seeking asylum in the United States, here in Canada, and in the U.K. And they're being granted asylum, which is a recognition, I think, of just how bad things are.

But while I don't think it's possible to overstate how bad things are, at the same time people get along, you know? Like Denise for example, who talks about meeting her girlfriend in Kingston, which I think is a wonderful human story. And so there's a way in which you kind of have to make the best of the situation that you're in. And that's why it was so important for me that the film convey these individual stories. For example, Miriam, the woman who talks about growing up in the ghetto and coming out to her family and being accepted - her story really blows the lid off a lot of people's preconceptions, including my own, that if you're from the ghetto, it's much harder to live a gay person. That certainly was the conventional wisdom, because people said to me often that the higher up the socio-economic ladder you go in Jamaica, the less your sexual orientation is an issue. But then along comes Miriam, who came out to her family, who was born and bred in the ghetto, and was accepted. Quite a number of other men who I interviewed off camera, who lived in ghettos, said the same thing - that their family knows, and a lot of the people in their communities know, and they're okay with it. But if someone from another community comes in to the ghetto, and is suspected of being gay, chances are that person is going to be stoned or stabbed to death.

MW: Do you think the typical Jamaican male will ever be able to put aside his own homophobia and bigotry? That's a broad question, of course, but I'm curious as to your opinion.

PIKE: I'm an optimist. I've been described as a dreamer, so perhaps I'm not the best person to give you a response to that. Because my response is I do believe that it is in all of our natures to change and evolve. It may take a longer time in that particular case because of Jamaica's history, but I think it will change nonetheless. It's been suggested to me that - and to a certain extent Larry alludes to this in the film when he's talking about his theory of the homophobia - Jamaica's experience of slavery was harsher, uglier, dirtier, use whatever word you will, than a lot of the other Caribbean islands and that's why the homophobia in Jamaica is of a qualitatively different kind than in other Caribbean islands. I have a cousin who went to law school in Cave Hill in Barbados. Now the University of the West Indies is a regional university, so in Barbados they would have had students from all the Caribbean islands, and she said invariably when it came time to talk about the sodomy laws in the seminars, it was always the Jamaican men who had the most virulent reaction to the conversation. Sure the Grenadian men or the Trinidadian men would react, but somehow the Jamaicans were just that much more over the top. So I don't know, maybe the Jamaican strain is more virulent, but I still think that it can change.

MW: How has making the film helped you on your own journey as a gay man?

PIKE: It brought together different parts of my identity, because I think in North America, I'm faced with this every day. Growing up in Canada, there were too many labels. I'm a black gay man. I'm an African-Canadian. Going back to Jamaica helped me to see myself as a whole person. I see myself now first and foremost as a human being. The fact that I'm black, the fact that I'm male, the fact that I'm gay, the fact that I'm all those other things that are identities in this particular society that I live in are now, for me, less important. The first and foremost are the human beings, and that's the level at which I want to connect with other people. So when I read this stuff about class, racial identity and the intersection of gender and race and class, my eyes kind of glaze over. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to disparage it - I think the politics of identity is important, but I think it's only one step along the way. I think what happens is a lot of us get stuck in that one place where we can only see ourselves by these labels. You know when I walk into the bank you know, I don't tell the teller I'm a black gay man. I'm a customer - and that's enough to get me the services. I don't need all that other stuff. For me now, I can't think in those terms anymore, so when I read that stuff, it's just like that teacher in Charlie Brown - it just becomes a lot of goobledy gawk to me. So that was my journey, a journey of putting aside all of those labels and essentially just seeing this is who I am. I'm a human being and that's the end of the story. .

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Jamaican human rights activist Larry Chang.

For more information on Songs of Freedom, visit www.jahloveboyproductions.com.

From: Tony Hron, Programme Director
JAMAICA FORUM FOR LESBIANS, ALL-SEXUALS & GAYS
Web: http://www.jflag.org Email: admin@jflag.org "JFLAG Admin" <admin@jflag.org>

2 July 2003

17
A Victory and a Reminder

Hi Everyone,
I was struck by two items as I perused our email and website today. The first is the newspaper picture of one of our Management Committee Members, and another Jamaican supporter representing J-FLAG in New York's Pride Parade last Sunday. It was a great reminder of how far we have come. The fact that we still cannot distribute the picture in Jamaica without obscuring the faces, reminded me how far we still have to go. (BTW, we will be marching in London's Pride Parade at the end of the month so if you'd like to join us, let me know and I'll send you the details)

The second item, a threatening posting on the J-FLAG bulletin board, also reminded me how important our work is and the need for continued effort.

Posted by 'kill all batti blood clart bwoy' (66.185.84.80) on June 30, 2003 at 20:19:53:

"I fully believein the bible and it clearly stated that batty blood clart man is ah bomination in the sight of jah so kill them you have the right too bun jFLAG mo fire for them ya'll better stay in ya'll closet & nuh com pon kingston streets or ya'll will get fucking killed tell you me say so ya'll batty blood clart faggots chi chi man fi dead & thats ah fact bun dem capleton bun dem alozade bun dem beenie bun dem war lord bun dem fire fire fire fi blaze dem up bun dem elephant bun dem kiprich mo fire mo fire mo fire under dem skin." (Basically the message says, 'kill the queer boys'.)

See the J-FLAG bulletin board if you want a few more choice comments: http://www.jflag.org/bbs/index.sht

Many victories have been won of late, both here and abroad. For all who have contributed your time, talent and resources, please pat yourself on the back and accept J-FLAG's sincere thanks!
However, let us not bask too long in these successes when attitudes like the one above still persist.
One love,
------
J-FLAG needs your support to continue its work. If you can contribute your time or talent, office equipment or supplies, or financial resources, please contact us today. Your generosity is greatly appreciated!

The Daily Gleaner, Kingston, Jamaica http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20030810/focus/focus1.html

August 10, 2003

18
Gays gain ground in Anglican Church (but Jamaica protests)

Ian Boyne, Contributor The confirmation last Tuesday of the first openly homosexual Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States has plunged the worldwide Anglican communion of over 77 million in a major crisis, and widens the schism in Christianity's second largest denomination. The 62-45 vote by Bishops in the city of Minneapolis - synonymous with the world's most famous Bible-thumping Evangelist Billy Graham - for Gene Robinson led Conservative Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan to say in an emotion-charged speech at the Episcopal General Convention that the Episcopal church had "divided itself from millions of Anglicans throughout the world".

Said the Bishop forcefully: "This body by wilfully confirming the election of a person sexually active outside of holy matrimony has departed from the historic faith and order of Jesus Christ. May God have mercy on this church."

In Jamaica
Here in Jamaica the Anglican Church has been quick to dissociate itself from its liberal sisters and brothers in Europe and America who are more "broad-minded" and "inclusive" than the Jamaican church can afford to be in a society which is literally violently opposed to homosexuality. The June issue of the Jamaica Churchman, official organ of the Anglican church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, has a lead headline on the Church's Stance on Homosexuality which said in its first paragraph that "news that a priest of the Church of England who openly admitted to being homosexual had been chosen to be the Bishop of Reading was received with shock and dismay by members of the diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands." Even Anglican clerics who are not known to be conservatives are sounding like Fundamentalists in their condemnation of homosexuality and are quick to demonstrate evangelical zeal in distancing themselves from their errant colleagues abroad.

These clerics and others know that it is almost impossible to have a reasoned, rational and dispassionate debate on homosexuality in Jamaica. Even among the intelligentsia, it is hard to find people who can bring their intellect and not just their emotions to bear on the issue. And yet there is no ethical issue in which reason and intellectual astuteness is called for more urgently than the homosexual debate. Among the Intellectuals Don't believe that it is just the narrow-minded, "fundamentalist-influenced homophobic people" who are driven by their emotions in the homosexual debate. Even among the intellectuals who are gay, I have never found anything resembling a serious attempt to philosophically ground homosexual practice. Perhaps because of the bigotry, prejudice and irrational opposition to which they have been exposed, many homosexuals have grown to be frighteningly intolerant, arrogant, dismissive and defensive. Any objection to their practice is labelled "homophobic" - a catch-all word which dispenses with the need to reason.

Justifying Homosexuality
Homosexuals seem to operate from the notion that their practice is right, acceptable and justified simply because it springs from their desire and "nature". In other words, homosexual feelings justify homosexual action. Ask the homosexual how he knows homosexual practice is not ethically wrong, and what would he say in reply? That, to quote a popular Third World song, "How can it be forbidden if it's love?" And how can a practice which is innate - some would say inborn and genetic - be wrong? Yet thinking people are supposed to know that there has been a tradition in philosophy spanning thousands of years where humans were pitted against their nature, and the virtuous life was seen as one in which humans used their will to subdue their passional nature. The great philosophers saw human nature itself as an obstacle to the Good Life - meaning the ethical life. They saw man's struggle essentially as the struggle to subdue a nature that is not automatically conformed to truth. The concept of using Nature as the pattern of morality does not have a long and honoured tradition in philosophical reflection. The homosexual debate is overarchingly a debate about philosophy. You can't get away from that.

Otherwise it's just your opinion against mine. Your prejudice against mine and your preference against mine. Or I kill you, chop you up or "bun you" if you are in the minority. It is time that we raise the homosexual debate on a higher plane than we are accustomed, both away from the level of our deejays and J-FLAG. Morality and Ethics The issue really comes down to asking a few basic questions: How do we determine morality? How do we know right from wrong? How do we establish ethics? And are there absolutes? The homosexual finds himself in a difficult position philosophically. If he is a secularist who rejects a transcendent reality (God) then he is likely to believe that ethics is socially grounded.

That is, morality is determined by and derived from the social and cultural context, as there is no objective morality "out there". Morality is what a group of people determine - to put it philosophically, morality is a social construct. Now, if morality is a social construct and the majority of people in our context in Jamaica, and certainly in the developing world, have deemed homosexuality immoral and unacceptable behaviour, then on what basis does the homosexual deem it moral and acceptable? What gives the individual homosexual the right to determine morality when the voice of the people has spoken so clearly on this issue? But the majority can be wrong, the homosexual might retort. In the past the majority felt that burning witches at the stake was right; that stronger states had the right to conquer and dominate weaker ones; that women were inferior to men; that slavery was acceptable, etcetera.

Some societies accepted that adulterers and sorcerers should be murdered, that cannibalism is okay and some even today accept the dreadfully painful female circumcision. Were and are these things right just because they are accepted by the majority? So the homosexual can reject the "tyranny of the majority". But what will he use to justify his conduct? The sovereignty of feelings; the sovereignty of desire.

In his view, homosexuality is right simply because he feels that way; that that is his nature and to deny his nature would be inhuman and preposterous. Yet, what about people who are naturally attracted to minors? Don't come with the argument, Mr. or Ms. Homosexual, that that would not involve consensual sex and, therefore, sex with minors is inherently immoral. Some would argue that a precocious 12 or 14-year-old could conceivably engage in consensual sex. It would be against the law, but couldn't it be argued that it is not necessarily immoral? As a society we are revolted by the thought of a 12 or 14-year-old having sex with an adult in his 40s or 50 - as well we should be.

But if the homosexual rejects societal norms and mores as grounds for establishing morality, then how can he conveniently invoke that to condemn sex with minors?

Transcendent Morality
The issue really comes down to that of whether there is an objective, transcendent morality and what would be the authority for determining that. The homosexual depends on his feelings and desires - what he sees as his nature - as the determinant of his morality.

And the Christian church depends on the Bible and church tradition to determine morality. It is absolutely clear and unequivocal to me that both the Bible and church tradition resolutely and stoutly condemn homosexual practice. But the problem for the church is that since the 19th century and especially since the 20th century there has been increasing scepticism about the authority of the Bible - coming from the church's own clergymen and women. And there is a general cynicism about authority in Western culture anyway, so appeals to church tradition are losing their grip on both the educated and uneducated. Our secularised culture, in which individualism is primary - and the Information Revolution has buttressed this - is the major philosophical force against the church's view. The church, I predict, will increasingly cave in under the weight of secularism and liberalism. The church has already accepted so many tenets of the liberal culture and has been so short-sighted philosophically that it is now trying to close the gate when the horse has bolted long ago.

As the Episcopal Canon Thomas Conley put it in a presentation in 2000 in the United States: "But what will happen to the church if we do ordain practising homosexuals to the priesthood and allow and bless same-sex unions? The first question I hear on this issue is, 'Do you think it is going to happen?' My response is yes. The reason is that homosexuality is here to stay. It is a reality of life and a reality of the church. It is not going away. The church will have to face it honestly and squarely. Reality cannot be ignored forever. There is an elephant in the room!"

The Price Of Freedom
A libertarian culture, fed on the milk of permissiveness and nurtured on the view that we should "obey our thirst" and fulfil our desires, cannot hold back the floodgates of homosexuality and assorted sexual practices traditionally condemned as immoral. As Peter Berkowitz says in the August/September issue of the scholarly journal Policy Review, in an essay on 'The Liberal Spirit in America', there is "an instability built into liberalism's fundamental moral premise.

The naturally free and equal individual is a sovereign individual, since his freedom signifies that he is his own highest authority." This is why arguments about the unnaturalness of homosexuality, or its assumedly minority status - like left-handedness - or its being contrary to nature or the Bible are dismissed by the homosexual sovereign who feels he needs only follow the desires of his sovereign heart. Continues Berkowitz in his insightful essay: "Romantic love, in the era of freedom, comes to occupy the commanding position in the hearts of men and women. In a world in which one authoritative good after another loses its lustre, romantic love offers the hope of the transcendent in the here and now. Romantic love has its roots in the powerful push and pull of sexual desire."

So Bishop Gene Robinson will not abandon his male lover of many years. The problem for the Christian church, not just the Anglican Communion, is that it has lost the philosophical and cultural battle with modernism and post-modernism. I predict that increasingly the world will set the agenda for the church, and the church will be following, with some sections kicking and screaming, right along the path blazed by secular society. The Lambeth Conference of 1998, with an overwhelming vote of 526 to 70 votes, reflecting more conservative forces of Anglicans in Africa, Asia and Latin America, rejected homosexuality as "incompatible with Scripture". But in an Anglican church which has over the years undercut biblical authority with its liberal readings of Scripture, the prohibition against homosexuality would seem strained. Get accustomed to openly homosexual priests and bishops for you will be seeing more of them around as the church continues to lose ground.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. You can e-mail your comments to ianboyne@yahoo.com.

The Guardian, London, England http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1045314,00.html

September 19, 2003

19
Gay rights activists seek arrest of reggae stars at Mobo awards

Fiachra Gibbons, arts correspondent

Three reggae stars nominated for a Mobo award may be arrested at the prize ceremony next week because the lyrics of their songs allegedly incite the murder of gays and lesbians.

Gay rights activists have presented Scotland Yard's hate crime unit wi