Marauding homosexuals and J-FLAG (Observer Editorial) ……………………

The Jamaica Observer made their position clear on the issue of the displaced and homeless MSM in the New Kingston area who have been getting themselves embroiled in all kinds of activities where the good now suffers for the bad. Originally published February 21, 2013 the piece is quite poignant on the abandonment of the men by the relevant agencies, the population’s behaviour and more, it is a pity that after four years of the closure of the Safe House Pilot project this very month to be precise we are still reaping the worldwind for not addressing homelessness when matters were less problematic and persons like myself at the local level after thousands of hours of work, consultations and brainstorming suggested the shelter idea to the then  powers that be which led to the pilot project then.

Here are the original posts I did on the ultimatum and the closure of the then residential facility in 2009/10:

Homeless MSM to feel the pinch as JASL issues ultimatum

The Homeless Project, the meeting and more

The Quietus ……… The Safe House Project Closes

Now This from the Observer………………………

THE Jamaican nation continues to struggle with the delicate issue of how to treat those of our citizens who are homosexuals.

In fact, the problem has been seriously exacerbated by the emergence of a growing band of homosexual men, largely operating in New Kingston, who have demonstrated a willingness to attack other citizens and to carry out criminal acts.

With the situation getting out of hand, the lobby group, Jamaican Forum for Lesbians, All-sexuals and Gays, (J-FLAG) has been forced to distance itself from the homosexuals they are calling “homeless gays”, declaring: “We want to make it absolutely clear that, while J-FLAG advocates for the rights of all Jamaicans, and, in particular, members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, J-FLAG does not condone any form of misconduct, violent or criminal behaviour.

“In addition, while these individuals may be members of the LGBT community, J-FLAG cannot be held culpable for their actions and behaviour,” the lobby group said in a January 2013 press statement.

In its infancy, J-FLAG became known for its public statements condemning ‘homophobic’ Jamaicans and its tendency to blame every killing of a homosexual on ‘homophobia’, no matter how clear it was that the incident was a domestic one involving gay lovers. Our police force and our national image overseas suffered terribly because of this practice.

Jamaicans who were incensed by these false accusations would have found the January statement a welcome departure, in that it acknowledged that not everyone who shunned a gay man, was doing so because of his homosexuality.

Said the group: “J-FLAG, as communicated to the police on many occasions, is fully supportive of their efforts to resolve the issues created by homeless gay men. J-FLAG agrees it is necessary to apprehend and incarcerate persons who commit crimes, and understands the necessity of mitigating the impact of lawlessness on business people, residents, employees, and commuters. J-FLAG does not in any way consider the police undertaking their duties as homophobic or being anti-gay…”

We suspect that a statement of this nature could only have come after much angst and desperation on the part of J-FLAG which admitted that it had made several attempts to intervene, but had been unsuccessful in its bid to rein in the culprits, some of whom are involved in frequent internal fights as well as criminal offences such as robbery.

“J-FLAG has met and collaborated with a broad range of stakeholders, including the police, the member of parliament for the constituency, the mayor, the Ministry of Health, the councillor, the Child Development Agency, church leaders, and representatives of the business community, but the outcomes have not been significant enough to address the behavioural issues from which these issues stem,” the organisation said.

J-FLAG, we believe, cannot like Pontius Pilate, wash its hands of the problem and must continue its efforts at intervention on behalf of that section of its constituency.

We hasten to say, however, that this is not just a problem for J-FLAG. These are Jamaican citizens who must be treated as all other Jamaicans. They are entitled to protection under law. Many of them have been cast out of their homes and communities and are living on the streets of Kingston. They are in urgent need of rehabilitative care, education and medical attention.

The society ignores them at its own peril.

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/editorial/Marauding-homosexuals-and-J-FLAG_13683576#ixzz2LwB9fcUW

My response comes via an edited podcast from a blog talk radio entry I did on February 23, 2012 sad the men continue to struggle after so many years of the dubious closure of the Safe House Project in 2009 originally designed to handle the problem when the men were much more docile than now. The previous post entered on December 21, 2012 dealt with the impatience of some of the men who were awaiting the promise of a shelter from JFLAG announced early as October 2012 yet no shelter is yet to come. See previous entries from Gay Jamaica Watch and GLBTQJA below:

Stoning Incident at Jamaica AIDS Support for Life’s Offices

The Continued wordwind from not addressing homelessness (when the men were more docile)

Homeless Men make news again (for all the wrong reasons part 1)

Interfaith group treated homeless MSM in St Catherine

also see newcasts/video on the issue

Some of us are still hopeful despite the foolishness that has obtained over the years and are also investigating what other solutions we can do without these so called responsible organizations who clearly by their foot dragging and negligence are not directly interested in doing the social justice work required for this marginalized group of persons. Simple community assisted living though laudable is not enough and can in no way address the ever increasing challenges and anti-social chaos that require serious psycho-social interventions that we alone can give and the financial situations for many private individuals cannot sustain such shelter assistance for any extended periods.

Peace and tolerance

H

The abomination of cowardice; The just and the unjust … John Maxwell’s 8y/o piece revisited

Some of you may know by now I have always liked this particular article from the late John Maxwell, in its original form it was one of those pieces that turned me on even more to advocacy and to think it came from a heterosexual at that in Jamaica is even more exceptional. His Maxwell House Blog is still up.

Here is the article in the form of an Observer Column published today:

The abomination of cowardice; The just and the unjust

Today marks the second anniversary of the passing of iconic journalist John Maxwell. In the following excerpts culled by his widow, Dr Marjan deBruin, from two of Maxwell’s columns (December 2004 and February 2007) published in the Sunday Observer, the journalist is at his trenchant best on issues over which the society continues to agonise.

SEVERAL years ago, various media outlets carried a rumour that homosexuals were planning a march on Jamaica House. I don’t remember anyone believing the story, but the media ran with it anyway. On the day appointed, dozens of idiots armed with cutlasses descended on Half-Way-Tree square prepared to teach the homosexuals a lesson. None, of course, appeared.

MAXWELL… if we do not ‘love’ one another, ie respecting the rights of all, if we destroy those who are different, we are sabotaging our own chances of survival by reducing the diversity and complexity of life, which is what enhances the odds that we will survive (Photo courtesy of Leah N Gold)

As I have said in an earlier column, it was a uniquely Jamaican occasion, because I don’t believe that anywhere else in the world would the press have been so willing to spread such a plainly ridiculous and dangerous story, given the homophobic environment; nor would there be, anywhere else in the world, people idle enough to assemble for a sporting massacre, as it were. It was a low point in Jamaican civilisation and none of our leaders said a word.

Unfortunately, on the question of homophobia and homosexuality, the press is at least as backward as the majority of Fundamentalist Jamaica. Reading the advice columns demonstrates just how ignorant and illiterate people — including some counsellors — are about anything concerning sex.

Betty Ann Blaine, a very nice lady who is also a well-known social worker, delivered herself of the dictum that homosexuality is ‘learned behaviour’… There is no authority anywhere for anyone to say that homosexual behaviour is learned.

On the contrary, controlled experiment with rats under environmental stress produced ‘homosexual’ intercourse which surprised the investigators because that was not what they were looking for. And homosexual pairing is well established among certain birds. There is also some evidence that there may be genetic predispositions which may or may not be reinforced by nurture. The fact is that no one really knows, which, I suppose, is as good a reason as any for murder.

Be fruitful and multiply…

 Diversity is the key to survival with species and among species. If we do not ‘love’ one another, ie respecting the rights of all, if we destroy those who are different, we are sabotaging our own chances of survival by reducing the diversity and complexity of life, which is what enhances the odds that we will survive.

To be fruitful and multiply is not, as some of us imagine, a prescription for uncontrolled breeding; it means that we should provide equal opportunity for the survival of all. Fitness arises from diversity, not the other way round.

The more diverse we are is the more likely that some of us will survive, which is directly opposite to the views of the sectarian bigots who now presume to lay down rules to decide who we should love and who we should allow to survive.

The prophet whose teachings they claim to follow, Jesus of Nazareth, was in fact a supremely practical philosopher whose teachings seem to contradict most of the stuff handed down by the new rule makers. When Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath, it was clear that He was not discarding the Sabbath and what it stood for, but making the point that while ethics and principles and the rules derived from them were prerequisites for a healthy and productive life, they were designed to fulfil human purposes and not to frustrate human happiness.

They needed to be adjusted and fitted to serve human purposes from time to time, to advance the human. Our ethical principles needed to be developed out of experience to serve real needs and not to be accepted simply because they had existed for a very long time or because some old geezer claiming to be a prophet said so.

Our absolutists who want to burn homosexuals and other sinners appear to reject one of the most fundamental arguments advanced by Jesus: that while the law and the prophets were to be taken into account, he was promulgating a new principle in total defiance of Mosaic Law: a new commandment give I unto you, he said, “that ye love one another.”

…The Christian Taliban

 Much of the homophobic plague now disfiguring our society is incited by those I call the Christian Taliban, a gang of prideful know-nothings who come not to call sinners to repentance, but to deliver them into the hands of the vigilantes. Some have acquired their second rate theology for a couple of hundred US dollars from some self-styled Bible college.

What riles me is that, in the heat of their newly bought holiness, they want to crucify the rest of us, or more accurately, to stretch or cut us to fit their own Procrustean beds of sublime ignorance.

They depend on the Old Testament, a collection of some of the oral history of nomadic tribes wandering about the Middle East 4,000 years ago. This accumulated wisdom was life-preserving at that time, surrounded as they were by enemies and eating unreliable food, but as Jesus of Nazareth said, it isn’t what a man consumes that defiles him, but what comes out of him.

Because the Israelite nomads wanted to build up the numerical strength of their tribes they encouraged men to impregnate their sisters-in-law if their brothers died, and buggery — then and now the poorest but surest means of birth control — was an abomination as was, for the same reason, ‘Onanism’ or masturbation.

To their modern-day successors, like the Pharisees and Sadducees with their phylacteries and other tokens of holiness, what is good is not what one does but what one says, forgetting another apothegm from Jesus — that the Devil can quote scripture to his own purpose. As far as they are concerned, the idea that God is Love is nonsense: God is a terrible God, full of wrath, vengefulness and thunderbolts.

These whited sepulchres understand Jesus’ advice that we should be our brother’s keepers to mean that they should be their brother’s jailers. My old friend Peter Walker used to call these hypocrites “God-Botherers” because they seemed to have exclusive hotlines to their divinity.

Now they counsel us based on misinterpretations of 4,000-year-old ‘science’, that abortion is always wrong, that life begins at conception and a host of other nonsense, including the belief that sex education makes children pregnant.

The latest outrage is the idea of raising the age of consent, an idea some would interpret to authorise the jailing of anyone who had sexual intercourse before that age. Just say no, they blather — ignorance is literally bliss. I have news for them: if they really want to protect young people they should promote the raising of the age of consent to 24, because scientists have discovered that the brains of human children do not completely mature until about that age.

As I write this my friend Canute James has shown me a story from The Guardian (London) about a Jamaican who has, for the last 27 years, successfully pretended to be an expert forensic psychologist. This conman even had a motto which must have come straight from Jamaica: ‘Exposing Unrighteousness for the Sake of Righteousness’.

This man, one Gene Morrison, who didn’t even have a ‘genuine mail order’ degree, duped judges, barristers and their clients for almost three decades. He gave “expert evidence” in cases involving armed robbery, rape, death by dangerous driving, unexplained death and drug offences. Police are now having to re-assess about 700 cases looking for miscarriages of justice.

Never underestimate the power of a righteous Jamaican, especially one armed with the Wrath of God.

also see:  John Maxwell’s “The Abomination of Cowardice” from Gay Jamaica Watch

and: Betty Ann Blaine & foreign religious zealots continue to mirespresent male  homosexuality from GLBTQJamaica

 

JFLAG’s needs to accept some responsibility for the Trafalgar Murders ….. homelessness not properly addressed

Calls on the PM to act despite her seemingly tolerant stance especially in today’s economic reality with austerity and political careers on the line are certainly going to be ignored, sorry but that is the reality in my view well crafted press releases and letters to the editor as the one in today’s Jamaica Observer without any serious interventions in the very community it says it represents is so evidencial of the lack of interest in addressing lgbt homelessness and displacement overall over the 14 year plus life of the J. Where are the residential/rehabilitation typed facilities for the homeless and displaced sections of the lgbt population that are urgently needed, why did we have to wait till a murder makes mainstream news to finally hear from JFLAG on such issues?  In as far as a timeline we saw this matter of homelessness during my more active times on the streets especially in the younger msm populations explode in 2007 and after due to a party dvd that went public thus exposing many persons who had to flee their communities to Kingston predominantly as the event took place in St Ann at the time, two persons were said to have lost their lives soon after due to the exposure.

The very title of the press release and subsequent letter GAYS SADDENED BY RECENT MURDERS, CALL ON PRIME MINISTER TO ACT suggests a kind of aloofness as if JFLAG is not a homosexual representative group, after all the use of the word “Gays” usually connotates a kind of contempt from homophobes or persons on some anti gay agenda or separatism, why use that in addressing this emotive matter? the section that described the group as “these people” is a bit troubling to me. No political party is going to take on that right now as was hinted to by a member of parliament (see PNP’s Damion Crawford says it’s highly unlikely buggery review will happen …….. it’s not important now he concludes) as far as I am concerned we will have to address our issues ourselves for now with all the access to resources we have especially in the programmatic arenas and again I ask where are the behaviour change experts in the field?

Police investigators at the crime scene on Trafalgar Road in St Andrew the morning of June 13th. – Norman Grindley

All this madness happening in pride month makes me wonder what is there to be proud of at this juncture of our history?

Here is the Observer letter that was published today:

Gays call on PM to listen to their cries

Dear Editor,

The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community is deeply saddened and concerned by the recent murders of gay men within the last three months. We, the community and allies, send our condolences to the loved ones, friends and families of these people.

We are concerned about the high levels of crime and violence across Jamaica. We condemn these and other grotesque murders of people, which continue to threaten peace, citizen security and justice in Jamaica.

Members of the LGBT community have reported to J-FLAG that eight gay men have been murdered within the last three months bringing to the fore the reality that despite progress towards greater tolerance, the LGBT community continues to be at great risk of violence.

Among the most recent attacks against the gay community was the savage killing of two young men. The men were apparently brutally murdered with blunt instruments in the vicinity of the intersection of Trafalgar Road and Lady Musgrave Road. People who are homeless frequented this area. Among them are young gay men who have been made homeless because of the continued intolerance of homosexuality in Jamaica.

While the motive for these latest senseless killings remains unclear, we expect that the government and police will thoroughly investigate all crimes, thereby mitigating their impact on all Jamaicans, regardless of socio-economic status, disability, health status, sexual orientation or gender identity. We stand ready to partner with the police to bring justice and respect to those whose right to life has been violated.

We also ask the Jamaican public and media to allow the police to conduct their investigations and resist the urge to judge the victims or the motive of their deaths. Let us instead recognise the inherent dignity of every person and respect that should be accorded to every living being while demanding the same justice for these men that we all deserve.

We call on the prime minister and the ministers of national security and labour and social security to listen to the cries and needs of members of our community who continue to be subjected to discrimination and violence, have nowhere to live and no food to eat because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

As we work collectively towards achieving Vision 2030, we invite all Jamaicans to embrace our common humanity and demonstrate respect for the lives of all people as we help make Jamaica, the place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business.

Dane Lewis

 

Executive Director, J-FLAG

 

PO Box 1152

 

Kingston 8

 

admin@jflag.org

ENDS

I hope that this murder is NOT paraded as a homophobic murder by the establishment as it is not as the alleged killer is also a member of the community. Intra and Inter community reasons are said to be the cause here with homelessness playing a major role.

Albeit the closure of the Safe House Pilot Project which was set up by a previous Executive Director of JFLAG’s parent Jamaica AIDS Support for Life, JASL still has a bad taste in many person’s mouths including the very men at the time who were made homeless again for reasons among which was the so called bad behaviour of the very men who were housed therein in 2010. JFLAG during the tumultuous time said or did nothing to stop the subtle eviction as one would have expected from any independent non aligned advocacy structure would have done on behalf of its representative groups that is claims to speak for. Fast forward to June 13 and all the mess and fallouts and even other deaths not so reported by the mainstream press in between as these two victims have recieved, it took this for JFLAG to finally talk about homelessness? while pretending to be so concerned about the group when bloggers, other activists, influentials and even other NGOs have been questioning over the years since the closure of the Safe House Project aforementioned where is the group during the struggles of the men to survive on their own despite their “bad behaviour?” especially the fact that the men were not far away from the offices of the organization whilst attacks, chases and beatings persisted with very little concern shown.

Let us also not forget: Rowdy gays banned by J-FLAG, JASL ………

Yes there is some truth that the men do call unto themselves uneeded heat as they can be loud and extraverted especially the effeminate members of the population which has led to some homo-negative press and homophobic violence but aren’t the two organizations above equipped with qualified behaviour change experts who ought to have at least understood anticedences when it comes to “bad behaviour hence leading to proper interventions?”

Why did we have to wait until two young promising lives are snuffed out before we see some media shenanigans from JFLAG? these two brothers were younger members of the displaced community who were alleged to be involved in commercial sex work as well. It smacks of a kind of opportunistic activity here by the J to use this issue as it has with other media episodes on LGBT life to present itself as concerned when the realities clearly indicate otherwise.

Why are most things just a press release or a set of letters to the editors and very little grass roots work to address inter and intra community issues?

Let us not forget the politics surrounding the two organizations named and the interior set up, it is important to note that they are all interlinked hence the description coined by some as the incestuous mess, could this be another reason why we can’t see any proper interventions to address homelessness separate and apart from the seemingly manufactured excuse that both groups do not have the resources to do that kind of work not to mention the apologists who are quick on the draw since these two murders and some question of accountability being brought into the subsequent discourse on social media and on the party scenes.

The other issue as well that the J has been getting some flack whether it knows it or not is the matter of gay for pay as alleged in another gruesome murder of a community member just a day before the Trafalgar matter where some have been asking where is the presence on the ground in knowing community members and or at least the cruising communities so as to identify and if not have preemptive workshops on how to negotiate sex with the hypermasculine DL segment of the MSM populations. Certainly JFLAG and other representative groups need to step up their game this is not the late nineties when the community was gullible and hid behind the body as it spoke on our behalf supposedly, things and times have changed drastically some for the better some for the worse and the representation needs to change with it while becoming really effective and not just a press release factory in what some say is a kind of intellectual duplicity.

JFLAG (and its affiliate Jamaica AIDS Support for LIFE) needs to accept some responsibility in the Trafalgar murders, simply put it has failed miserably in addressing homelessness and displacement especially in the last two plus years since the closure of the pilot Safe House Project, it kept disturbingly quiet when the ultimatum was issued and project was closed and the first of two civil disobedience actions by the men although it was clear the men in the shelter at the time would have been made homeless yet again coupled with new additions as more young msms become displaced hence homeless afterwards due to forced evictions and homophobia, not to mention the use of the very space that was the shelter to become the J’s present office. It cannot function independently of JASL or even the sister group Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition as the principals of these two groups have some connection to the J in some instances showing clear conflict of interest so matters that are deemed not important in their eyes at the time just simply do not get attended to, a fact known to many who have gone through the systems. The belief or perception also that the “bad behaving men” are somehow unworthy of any serious support is tacitly supported by the J it seems as they are silent as per usual on matters of homelessness except one sluggish radio interview in 2011 in radio Jamaica’s Beyond The Headlines where the group’s Executive Director then alongside the current ED of Jamaica AIDS Support for Life tried to paint a picture as if they tried other programs such as a gardening project to which the men barely responded, this suggests to me a mindset that the men must accept any little thing that is handed to them no matter how insignificant or paltry it may seem but the question comes again where are the behaviour change experts who know that this population needs more than just a handout or patchwork half house typed facilities without the proper basic psycho social support?

To suggest that it cares about the plight of persons despite socio economic status smacks on a kind of hypocrisy that exists overall in the LGBT community, we know fully well the elitism and classism that runs counter to all that is to be wholesome and these factors even affect how business is done, the vast majority of activists in its midst have never been exposed to the real life issues surrounding stigma and especially displacement/homelessness so they do not exert any willingness to engage such populations, as one community member said it recently near the murder site educated upper middle income folks speaking on behalf of ordinary people …………. this suggests a disconnect in my view, a problem that must be addressed if there is to be any movement in real grassroots work amongst the least of us.

Many persons including myself would love to support any properly thought through and laid out programs to address homelessness in particular but given just some of the challenges as hinted to above how can we get there without some serious paradigm shifts happening? ……………… while our brothers (and sisters as the case maybe) languish and suffer sometimes in silence, if this matter did not get the media spotlight we probably would not have heard a thing from the J, apart from the 8 persons tragically taken from us since this year some of which have made mainstream news there were two other murders in the New Kingston area as well at the other base where substance abusers and homeless persons also use, this was confirmed just days before the Trafalgar matter made news but was not highlighted in the press.

see more on that HERE: Homeless population continues to spiral ….. and Murder, Homelessness and fallouts …………….

Other community influentials have become weary as well due to all the issues surrounding the men over the years so they too have contributed to the aloofness towards to populations, the scholarship program started by some have since wained and the feeding programs have died in the water, the recent Green Gables troubles with the subsequent mobbing in front of the popular theatre and the added Chicken n Things incident has not helped any. The murder also of one of the private donors towards some support for those who want to return to some sort of schooling has greatly affected what little avenue was available to assist if not one member of the group.

So much to ponder on regarding our homeless populations and where to go, the ethical and moral considerations are not too far behind, if we are to be credible with all the letters, thesis, scholarships and impressionable radio interviews will all be for naught if we do not treat with balance the real marginalized amongst us, how can we ask for tolerance from the mainstream when we are so contemptuous of our lesser populations, we already have enough on our plates from the anti gay establishments then this towards our own?

here is a synopsis in audio:

Peace and tolerance

H

Jamaican Clergyman on Gay Manifesto ………………………

Reverend Peter Garth President of the Association of Gospel Assemblies in a follow-up interview (see video below) of Television Jamaica on June 6th continued his seemingly paranoid quest on this supposed old 1987 Gay Manifesto that had among other things some suggestions to paedophilia and more, interestingly the interviewers were on point and brought home the issue that when discussing matters as this we must use a local perspective. I am sure no local group or individual has ever lobbied on the basis of that so called gay manifesto, in fact I do not see any semblance of same on the international lobby’s agenda either and to suggest so is crazy and only sends ignoramuses into panic with this religious leader crying wolf. Is this man fit to lead a congregation after this public display?

It was First Published in Gay Community News, Feb. 15-21, 1987

I had to laugh at first when I saw the published manifesto as excerpted below and then after seeing the interview I am flabbergasted. There are other things in Jamaica that need far more urgent attention that a mere supposition of what local gay lobby groups are going to do or if foreign countries are going to somehow force us to capitulate to the batty agenda. The piece actually in some intellectual circles is deemed a poem of sorts and has been misrepresented by other religious leaders elsewhere.

(From the Congressional Record, with preface restored [restored preface in blue])

This essay is an outré, madness, a tragic, cruel fantasy, an eruption of inner rage, on how the oppressed desperately dream of being the oppressor.

However to see him just drop his allegation that Jamaican is under pressure from other countries of which he never named or was asked to name and the supposed link to the lowering of sexual consent as if that links to our struggle here in Jamaica.

See what you make if all this readers, frankly this man getting air time for this garbage when thousands of kids are missing, murders frightening, economic woes and a sense of hopelessness is coming over us with the tax packages and pressure on the poor yet these crackpots (strong description) do not speak out or on these issues. I would have thought that the family as he puts it is already under threat from the very church, when persons are forced to marry in order to prove they are worthy while they are really not in love or even know each other. The Reverend mistakenly conflates paedophilia with homosexuality and this dishonest position to bolster their argument is so unethical.

Full text of the Gay Manifesto!

Jamaica Observer
Wednesday, May 23, 2012

A local pastor says he is willing to take the fight to the powerful international gay lobby even if it means he loses his life.

Speaking at a recent Jamaica Observer’s Monday Exchange, the Reverend Peter Garth, read out a section of the Gay Manifesto which he said was crafted to destroy the heterosexual family and eventually the society. Garth told reporters and editors that he is prepared to die in the fight against what he described as a ‘very powerful’ gay lobby.

Below is the complete text of the Gay Manifesto.

The Gay Manifesto
First Published in Gay Community News, February 15-21, 1987

We shall sodomise your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups, in your movie theater bathrooms, in your army bunkhouses, in your truck stops, in your all male clubs, in your houses of Congress, wherever men are with men together. Your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us.

Women, you cry for freedom. You say you are no longer satisfied with men; they make you unhappy. We, connoisseurs of the masculine face, the masculine physique, shall take your men from you then. We will amuse them; we will instruct them; we will embrace them when they weep. Women, you say you wish to live with each other instead of with men. Then go and be with each other. We shall give your men pleasures they have never known because we are foremost men too, and only one man knows how to truly please another man; only one man can understand the depth and feeling, the mind and body of another man.

All laws banning homosexual activity will be revoked. Instead, legislation shall be passed which engenders love between men.

All homosexuals must stand together as brothers; we must be united artistically, philosophically, socially, politically and financially. We will triumph only when we present a common face to the vicious heterosexual enemy.

If you dare to cry faggot, fairy, queer, at us, we will stab you in your cowardly hearts and defile your dead, puny bodies.

We shall write poems of the love between men; we shall stage plays in which man openly caresses man; we shall make films about the love between heroic men which will replace the cheap, superficial, sentimental, insipid, juvenile, heterosexual infatuations presently dominating your cinema screens. We shall sculpt statues of beautiful young men, of bold athletes which will be placed in your parks, your squares, your plazas. The museums of the world will be filled only with paintings of graceful, naked lads.

Our writers and artists will make love between men fashionable and de rigueur, and we will succeed because we are adept at setting styles. We will eliminate heterosexual liaisons through usage of the devices of wit and ridicule, devices which we are skilled in employing.

We will unmask the powerful homosexuals who masquerade as heterosexuals. You will be shocked and frightened when you find that your presidents and their sons, your industrialists, your senators, your mayors, your generals, your athletes, your film stars, your television personalities, your civic leaders, your priests are not the safe, familiar, bourgeois, heterosexual figures you assumed them to be. We are everywhere; we have infiltrated your ranks. Be careful when you speak of homosexuals because we are always among you; we may be sitting across the desk from you; we may be sleeping in the same bed with you.

There will be no compromises. We are not middle-class weaklings. Highly intelligent, we are the natural aristocrats of the human race, and steely-minded aristocrats never settle for less. Those who oppose us will be exiled.

We shall raise vast private armies, as Mishima did, to defeat you. We shall conquer the world because warriors inspired by and banded together by homosexual love and honor are invincible as were the ancient Greek soldiers.

The family unit-spawning ground of lies, betrayals, mediocrity, hypocrisy and violence – will be abolished. The family unit, which only dampens imagination and curbs free will, must be eliminated. Perfect boys will be conceived and grown in the genetic laboratory. They will be bonded together in communal setting, under the control and instruction of homosexual savants.

All churches who condemn us will be closed. Our only gods are handsome young men. We adhere to a cult of beauty, moral and esthetic. All that is ugly and vulgar and banal will be annihilated. Since we are alienated from middle-class heterosexual conventions, we are free to live our lives according to the dictates of the pure imagination. For us too much is not enough.

The exquisite society to emerge will be governed by an elite comprised of gay poets. One of the major requirements for a position of power in the new society of homoeroticism will be indulgence in the Greek passion. Any man contaminated with heterosexual lust will be automatically barred from a position of influence. All males who insist on remaining stupidly heterosexual will be tried in homosexual courts of justice and will become invisible men.

We shall rewrite history, history filled and debased with your heterosexual lies and distortions. We shall portray the homosexuality of the great leaders and thinkers who have shaped the world. We will demonstrate that homosexuality and intelligence and imagination are inextricably linked, and that homosexuality is a requirement for true nobility, true beauty in a man.

We shall be victorious because we are fueled with the ferocious bitterness of the oppressed who have been forced to play seemingly bit parts in your dumb, heterosexual shows throughout the ages. We too are capable of firing guns and manning the barricades of the ultimate revolution.

Tremble, hetero swine, when we appear before you without our masks.

ENDS

Judging by the look and sound of this interview we have a group of religious leaders with shifting ideologies with far more strength for the LGBT lobby more so than addressing the more obvious things some of which I mentioned above.

Gratuitous gestures to suggest that we must be allowed express ourselves but it stops there but when questioned about going into people’s bedroom he adjusts a long held position by other antigay religious leaders.

Watch for this hypocrites.

Peace and tolerance

H

Let the people decide …….. Parliament urged to put buggery law issue to a referendum

VICE-PRESIDENT of the Jamaica Association of Evangelicals Rev Peter Garth has urged Jamaicans not to leave the repeal of buggery laws to parliamentarians, but instead called for a referendum on this issue, which has again taken centre stage with the recent endorsement of same-sex marriage by United States President Barack Obama.

“Don’t sit in Parliament and make a decision; let the Jamaican people decide,” Garth said as he addressed the weekly Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange at the newspaper’s head offices in Kingston.

Talks of repealing Jamaica’s buggery laws intensified following the political debates leading up to the December 29, 2011 General Election when then Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller promised to review these laws if she was returned as prime minister.

Simpson Miller, who was returned as prime minister in the polls, also challenged a previous declaration by former Prime Minister Bruce Golding who told a BBC TV interviewer some years ago that no gays could serve in his Cabinet. She said she was not in favour of such a position and suggested that persons should be selected for Cabinet duties on the basis of their capacity to deliver.

Rev Peter Garth (right), vice-president of the Jamaica Association of Evangelicals, gestures while addressing yesterday’s Observer Monday Exchange. With him are members of the Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society (from left) Alexis Robinson, Dr Wayne West, Rev Dennis Jernigan and his wife Melinda. (Photo: Naphtali Junior)

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/VIDEO–Let-the-people-decide_11518258#ixzz1vifQDUie

Rev Garth argued, however, that it was not a human right to be a part of a Cabinet and any prime minister has a right to select persons to serve in this capacity. “He (Golding) was extremely bold to say what he did and I have no problem with that because if someone says that is my preference he must have that right just as how Obama has the right to come out and say what he said recently,” he added.

Last October, Britian’s Prime Minister David Cameron announced that his country would begin withholding aid from governments that do not reform legislation banning homosexuality.

But yesterday, Rev Garth, who strongly opposes the repeal of buggery law in Jamaica, said he took strong objection to this approach by international donors.

“This is a sovereign nation and I take strong objection whether it is the President of the United States of America, the Prime Minister of England or Australia trying to dictate what should happen in Jamaica. If the people decided against it they should not be saying they are going to cut off funding,” he said.

According to Rev Garth, there has been no research to show where the buggery laws have made Jamaica a more homophobic nation. “You look at the incidence (violence against homosexuals) in Jamaica and I am placing it on the table that majority of those acts are infighting,” the churchman said.

Meanwhile, attorney-at-law and member of the Jamaica Coalition for Healthy Society Alexis Robinson said Jamaicans must realise that there are some things which were more important than pandering to international agendas.

“We will not come under a new form of colonialism and we will not allow England or America or anyone else to tell us how we should be who we are,” Robinson said, adding that Jamaicans were one of the few people in the United Nations who stood up for the abolition of apartheid in South Africa.

“We have a huge international voice, and it is time for us to use that in a positive way,” she told Observer reporters and editors.

She further questioned if Jamaicans want a Jamaica which is open to everything, resulting in the rapid decline of culture and family. “It is short-sighted that we accept something and 20 years from now we have nothing to hold on to as a result, or do we want to say no this is who we are as a people we will not bow to international pressure,” she said.

Tackle homosexuality in schools, says churchman

LEADING clergyman Rev Peter Garth says a special effort ought to be made to tackle the problem of homosexuality in schools.

He cited examples of irregular sexual behaviour in institutions for girls and called for an urgent investigation into “what has been happening in schools”.

Rev Garth, the vice-president of the Jamaica Association of Evangelicals and a sympathiser of the anti-homosexual organisation — the Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society — was addressing editors and reporters at the weekly Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange held at the newspaper’s Beechwood Avenue offices yesterday.

“Homosexuals globally do not keep it to themselves. Why is it that they go into the schools? Why is it that they do what they do?” the clergyman asked.

“You know why a lot of persons are afraid to come out and speak? It’s because they don’t want the name of their particular high school to be said (publicised), but we need to investigate what is happening.

He added: “I have counselled and I am counselling persons who have been attacked, and until the attack takes place, those students remain in school.

“The schools must be alerted to the reality that there are persons who are out there trying to infiltrate our schools.

Citing personal experience, Rev Garth stated that his efforts to counsel affected students had led to threats of lawsuits and in one case, a student broke her silence which prompted school authorities to sit up and take note.

If those girls were not helped, later on in life the gay community would say that these are all gay people. But we managed to help them through, as we have done with so many persons, and today what you find is that persons who have received help are happily married with children and are thankful that they did not continue down that road.”

“I have been threatened to be taken to court because I tried to help and to counsel persons. It is a tedious role, a hard role.

“The fact is a number of parents were called to a school, and when the parents came, some of them threatened to take me to court because I stand up as chaplain and board member and all that I was trying to do was to help these girls. The long and short of it is that one of the girls broke down and said that they were not lies and then began to call other schools that actually brought them into it.

“There are others who have been attacked in the restrooms and when they make a report they are told initially that nothing can be done. When people start to send texts, that’s how it begins, because they are told to find out in schools the ones who lean that way. So it is something that we have to go after,” said Rev Garth, who added that he was unaware of the extent of homosexuality in schools other than those for girls.

“I have heard about them, and people have told me so, but I have first-hand information about girls schools.

“I have also had that experience at university level and persons have come in for counselling,” Rev Garth said.

Betty Ann Blaine on ……………… Sold out for 30 pieces of silver?

The impression created here is that the ruling PNP has been funded by some of the powerful LGBT lobby overseas and the constant mistake of lumping adult male homosexuality with same sex paedophilia, see what you make of it, have a read of the piece below by children’s rights advocate and New Nation Coalition founder Betty Ann Blaine as published in the Jamaica Observer Tuesday April 24:

Sold out for 30 pieces of silver?

Dear Reader,
One of the interesting nuances of Jamaican society is the way in which information pertinent to the country is released from sources outside of our borders. It leads one to ask serious questions about the respect our leaders have for the people of Jamaica and the ramifications of those issues being externally disclosed and discussed.

The latest revelation came last week when Time magazine disclosed that Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller had called for “full civil rights for gays and lesbians”. In listing Mrs Simpson Miller among their 100 most influential persons in the world, the report stated, “Simpson Miller began her second stint in six years as Jamaica’s PM, and she’s kicking off the country’s 50th anniversary of independence by calling for the island to sever ties with the British monarchy. More impressive, however, is that she did something few thought possible in one of the world’s most homophobic nations; she called for full civil rights for gays and lesbians. One has to understand Jamaica’s violently anti-homosexual history to appreciate her courage which could resonate throughout the region if she’s successful.” Next to the Time magazine report is the photograph of Mrs Simpson Miller and a caption that noted that voting for the candidates for the 100 list had closed.
Obviously Time magazine knows much more than we the people of Jamaica know. When did the prime minister call for “full civil rights for gays and lesbians, and is there information that the magazine is privy to that we are unaware of here at home? If Time magazine misquoted the prime minister, how is it that we have not had a retraction from Jamaica House?
For a matter with such far-reaching national implications, I am surprised that there has been such complete silence from the administration since the story made international news.
It seems to me that the Jamaican people deserve the respect of a full and detailed disclosure as to exactly what, if anything, the Simpson-led administration may have promised the international gay community prior to and after the general election.
During the election campaign, the Jamaica Labour Party publicly questioned the People’s National Party as to whether or not the party received funding from the international gay community. In light of last week’s developments, those unanswered questions may now have greater relevance.
What the country knows is that during the pre-election debate, Mrs Simpson Miller stated that she would not be averse to reviewing the country’s buggery law, which in my view is in and of itself problematic. What the country did not hear was that she called for “full equal and civil rights for gays and lesbians”, and quite frankly, we don’t know what that really means.
Equally disturbing is the offensive and inaccurate description of Jamaica as “one of the most homophobic places on earth”, and a country with a “violently anti-homosexual history”. Not only am I unaware that any global survey has ever been done, but as far as I understand it, Jamaicans are Christians, not homophobes. I for one have no “phobia” for anything or anyone. As a Christian society, it is God’s word that is paramount, and not the dictates of any group, internal or external. The argument that Jamaica is one of the most homophobic places on earth is consequently a moot point.
Even more astounding is the allegation that we are a country with a “violently anti-homosexual history”. It is time that Jamaicans debunk that lie that has been circulating for far too long. Where are the statistics to substantiate that sweeping generalisation?
There is no doubt that Jamaica is a violent society. Every year in excess of 1200 people are murdered including young men, the elderly, women and children. Babies have been shot; children murdered and dismembered – even beheaded, among other gross atrocities. Many, if not most of those cases remain unsolved, so that any broad statement involving any particular grouping in the society, without the requisite research and documentation, would unfortunately remain unsubstantiated. Let me hasten to say that no murder or act of violence against any individual or group can and should be justified.
While I’m aware that there is mounting pressure from outside forces for Jamaica to repeal its buggery law in the first instance, I would caution the prime minister about any hasty decision, particularly in light of the growing allegations of the buggery of small children. As far as I am concerned, there can be no review of the law until a detailed and thorough study is done about buggery, especially its impact on the most vulnerable in the society.
Jamaica is a country characterised by the abuse of power and the vast expanse between the “haves” and the “have-nots”. The access and ability to sexually violate a child, both by heterosexuals and homosexuals is immense and easy, and there is a lot of it going on. Children of the poor, and especially those who are homeless and without parental care, are particularly at risk. Even more damning is their inability to access justice and restitution through the courts.
What the prime minister should do, now that she is among the world’s most influential people, is to use her status to highlight the horrific sexual atrocities being meted out to the children of the poor in Jamaica and to seek help to improve their condition. What we need is a “buy-in”, not a “sell-out” – and for how much? Thirty pieces of silver?
With love,
bab2609@yahoo.com

Lesbians & Learning – Situtational Homosexuality at a Kgn All Girls School ?

The following article appeared in the Gleaner originally entitled:

Lesbians And Learning – Younger Students Under Siege At Corporate Area All-Girls School

But is this a case of experimentation or situational homosexuality as occurs in spaces where same sexed persons co-exist for extended periods? Have a read of the article first then see my comments below -

Authorities at a prominent Corporate Area all-girls high school are reportedly struggling to deal with several sexual attacks on young girls by older students.

School authorities on Wednesday summoned parents to an emergency meeting as more and more young girls started reporting horror stories of cases where they were forced to perform sexual acts with the older girls.

The Gleaner understands that some girls in the upper school usually endeavour to recruit the young girls from the first and second forms.

A parent who attended the meeting told The Gleaner that a plethora of issues were discussed.

“They called the emergency meeting yesterday (Wednesday) to address the behavioural patterns of students in the school,” the parent said.

Circulating porn

The parent added that they were told the children were “circulating pornography and a lot of things”.

The parent also said the acting principal and the teachers were very frustrated with what was happening at the school.

“Lesbianism is so rampant at the school in the bathrooms. I’m very, very concerned,” the worried parent said.

A senior student, who spoke with The Gleaner, revealed that the pornography being circulated was that of a grade-10 student performing oral sex on an adult male.

The student, who reportedly recorded the sex act, sent it to her peers via Bluetooth.

The student said the lesbianism problem at the school was getting out of control with increasingly more public displays of affection, even in front of faculty members.

“The lesbians are just getting prime. They don’t really care,” the student said.

The student explained that a recent decision to move the grade-seven girls from a block that was in proximity to the grade-11 block was spawned by the fact that the upper-school girls were preying on the lower-school girls.

“When they are ready, they lock up the seven-grade bathroom and you can’t get in. When you open the door, it is fifth-form girls in there,” she said.

The senior student said some of the girls openly admit that they are lesbians and others say they are bisexual.

Use of force

Another student explained that some fifth-form students use force to sexually molest some first-formers and the situation is now of major concern at the institution.

“The older girls are having sex with the younger girls by force. It is not the first time it is happening. The lesbians them a go on bad,” she said.

A parent who said she was aware of the situation was quick to point out that the parents need to play their part.

“The practice is getting out of control but instead of labelling the students, persons should instead try to assist. The situation is a crisis at the school but it is really a testing of faith,” one parent said.

“We have to try to guide them at home. They can change, they just need our guidance,” she added.

The Gleaner spoke with a group of girls yesterday who appeared to be on lunch break. They too confirmed the reports of lesbianism at the institution.

Some of the girls said it was something that has been going on at the school for a long time.

“I know about it. I am not sure of the details but it is not something new. It has been going on for a long time and the girls are not giving it up,” one of the girls said.

Students scared

However, some students said they did not know about the activity while others seemed too scared to talk to the media as they would neither confirm nor deny the reports.

A parent said: “Come this morning, the solution was that they would take away all the BlackBerry phones because that is what they have been using to circulate the pornography.”

She added: “One parent said her daughter saw two girls making out in the bathroom.”

The parent also disclosed that the acting principal said the school could not take action against the girls’ activities without concrete evidence.

She said the acting principal gave a toll-free number for students and parents to call with information without revealing their identities.

“Really and truly, I don’t want my daughter to get lost in the system,” the parent said.

When The Gleaner contacted the acting principal for an official response, she declined to comment, claiming she was unaware of such a situation and that the meeting held on Wednesday was just a regular parent-teacher association meeting. It had been reported last year that lesbianism was a growing challenge in the education system, especially at some all-girls institutions.President of the Jamaica Association of Guidance Counsellors in Education, Dr Grace Kelly, had said the matter was significant and called for attention.

ENDS

But some more questions come to mind for me as previous media reports similar in nature without any follow up always leave me puzzled

The Star News also carried a VERY similar story in October 2011 posted HERE on GLBTQ Jamaica

Are these females in an experimental stage of their sexual development, thus practicing same sex activity?

Were the first formers actually sexually assaulted and were they taken to a doctor for an examination or the police?

Are the schools’ guidance counselling systems providing the wrong kind of counselling to the so called victims when they maybe lesbians indeed?

Are the schools’ overlooking the sexual orientation issues of the girls involved?

Are female teachers also guilty of forced initiation to female students in some single sexed institutions as well as we have seen in heterosexual scenarios where male students make moves on female students?

Are the alleged older fondlers actually lesbians or are they just exercising psychological  intimidation over the younger students while using fondling as an embarrassing ploy?

If this turns out to be true do instances like this weaken the case for tolerance and make the perception of the “homosexual lifestyle” as predatory more cemented in the minds of detractors?

Should sexual orientation be looked at seriously by the Ministry of Education and the Guidance Counseling bodies in as far as dealing with lgbt teens, early initiation and peer pressure for sexual activity? 

Could the females described here be actually transmen (FTM – female to male preoperative transgender) acting out or mimicking the societal masculine roles as done by men locally to “hunt” young teens and beautiful women?

But with an education system devoid of really engaging sexuality and same sex issues squarely will we ever get the right answers outside of this and having to rely on a newspaper’s story? Is there a thin line between experimentation and predatory behaviour here?

It was earlier last year that the Observer published an article by Janice Budd claiming lesbian gangs were terrorizing schools  in May of this year there was some panic created as well by the Jamaica Association of Guidance Counselors in Education (JAGE) when its President Dr. Grace Kelly created a stir by making several comments on the issue, among other things a Gleaner story byNadisha Hunter summed it up – “There is a challenge in the schools and the guidance association is aware of it,” she said.”What we continue to do is to provide counselling and support for these children, and to ensure that we provide them access to proper information, and through the guidance and counselling sessions, the students are given an opportunity to understand and appreciate their sexuality,” Dr Kelly added.She noted that while it has not reached the stage where any matter had to be referred to a psychiatrist or psychologist, she was aware that cases have been referred to other persons in the education setting because of the nature. Also See: Sex therapist Dr Sidney McGill says “Lesbianism is on the rise in Jamaica & world-wide with even young girls in co-ed schools preferring other girls” from my sister blog GLBTQ Jamaica on blogger.

A talk show host suggested that parents of the aggrieved students sue the school for endangering the morals of children as the school is negligent in allowing this issue to happen although he (Ronald Mason of Nationwide News) also suggested students should be given condoms as their actions cannot be managed on a 24hr basis so they should be afforded the protection needed so as to avoid contracting STIs and HIV.

Issues such as this JFLAG also need to wake up from slumber and deal with as same gender loving female activity perceived or not are grossly overlooked for years by the NGO and with calls from the former President of the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship President to have lesbian sex criminalised as well one wonders when are they going to wake up?

also see on GLBTQJA on Blogger: Principals Association to address “Lesbian Issue”

Update 11.03.12 – Now a press release from the J 11.03.12 entitled: J-FLAG CONDEMNS SEXUAL COERCION AND CALLS ON SCHOOLS ADMINISTRATORS TO DIALOGUE, this response to me shows the the lack of forward thinking and understanding of initiation, situational homosexuality and experimentation issues. Then again SGL women’s issues were never something they have dealt with effectively.

Peace and tolerance

H

Homo/Effemophobia & Homo-paedophile castigation masked as concerns for rights ????

So it seems.

In an Observer article today Michael Burke gave his take on Rights Responsibilities and Civics as it applies to Jamaica and wherein the articles title sounds all welcoming and opening with the passing of former talk show host and progay journalist Wilmot Mutty Perkins (photo below)also see:  Perkins scolded for his “tolerance”

Imagine my surprise when we go into the body of the article where he goes to the recent promise to review the buggery law and conscience vote by the present PM only to find he expresses this fear that homosexuals as child hunters/molesters, open effeminacy or cross dressing aesthetics are too much and that gay parades is homosexuality being shoved in the public’s face.

One would have thought by now we would have gotten pass this kind of garbage and while I agree freedom of speech is crucial the Observer seems to regress sometimes by accepting these kinds of articles, the offending paragraphs:

“………During the election debates in the lead-up to the general election last December, the question of gay rights was brought up. Portia Simpson Miller said that a People’s National Party government would review the buggery law. Homosexuality is a sin (Catechism of the Catholic Church number 2357), but homosexuals should be treated with dignity like everyone else, despite their sins (number 2358). If the law is changed to allow consenting adults to do what they want sexually in the privacy of their homes (excluding housing schemes where the houses are close), I am prepared to leave that up to Almighty God for judgement.

What should not be condoned is paedophilia, gay parades and cross-dressing in public. And parents and guardians should be liable to penalties if they cross-dress their children. This has been one of my concerns for more than two decades. In 2006, I wrote and sang a song called Man fe look like man. Homosexuality should not be shoved in everyone’s face anymore than prostitution or being forced to endure loud music after certain hours. And adults should have the right to bring up their children without undue influence of practising homosexuals, prostitutes or indecent songs in the media, which includes loud amplifiers. These are rights that should be in the Constitution.”

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Rights–responsibilities-and-civics_10786522#ixzz1mXuldP7y

Why do persons under the guise of intellectual discourse frothed with dishonest motive continue to misconstrue effeminacy or cross dressing with some contagious gay infection in the air that suddenly is going to change children or pubescent persons into flaming queens? Save and except of course the individual who realises his or her own sexuality, gender identity or sexual orientation by such presentations and may gravitate to same presentations via expressing their own feelings or a transgender individual or realises their mixed gender issues and decide to present as the gender they see themselves as which is far different from someone who is coerced into activities they may not necessarily subscribe to at that time. What about that enlightened parent or even not so enlightened ones who realises there are gender identity issues with their child or children and rightly consults a professional and the child/children are deemed as transgender and therefore are encouraged to aesthetically present the child as the gender they see themselves as prior to any reassignment surgery? ……….. it seems Mr Burke would have those parents criminally responsible for some crime in his world, what backward thinking. Is that cross dressing a child Mr. Burke?

And where in Jamaica are children cross dressed? 

This nonsense also of the Catholic church (Catechism of the Catholic Church number 2357) somehow issuing edicts unto and over people’s lives as if they are the be all and end all of all things religious and right when their hands are stained with blood with years of issues and impositions with their brand of religion in the name of God under some absolutist monarchist structure.

We need to stop this intellectual dishonesty in backing the anti homosexual agenda ……. I am getting a bit weary by all this tired trite arguments on this now.

I strongly suggest we bombard his email with RESPECTFUL but factual points on the clear separation between same sex paedophilia (sometimes the perpetrators are heterosexual) versus consenting same sex attracted adults and this business of cross dressing or tranvestitism linked to perceived changing others sexual orientation.

his email is: ekrubm765@yahoo.com

also see:

Continued misconceptions of adult homosexuals being paedophiles (click image to buy book)

Ephebophilia vs Paedophilia & Male Homosexuality part 2 …. the need to continue the discourse

Male Sexual Assault Myths …… “Cries of Men”

No Reported cases of Paedophilia say local Catholic Diocese Representative

Ephebophilia vs Paedophilia & Male Homosexuality

Brain scans used to detect paedophilia ……

What also is of concern is the section where he says “If the law is changed to allow consenting adults to do what they want sexually in the privacy of their homes (excluding housing schemes where the houses are close), I am prepared to leave that up to Almighty God for judgement.” this seems to be a swipe at a recent incident in Innswood St. Catherine or other similar exposures in housing schemes in lower middle income or inner city communities where prying eyes are closer and can lead to sometimes disastrous results for same gender loving Jamaicans. Obvioulsy the MSM community in upper St. Andrew and other affluent areas do not encouter this phenomenon save and except for the occasional murder in their own homes as they “import” thug type or hypermasculine types for sexual encounters and something goes wrong which does not mean these thug types were somehow straight and turned gay overnight just for money or material gains.

In the Innswood matter there were complaints of loud music, multiple visits from male thugs to some cross dressing sisters and the neighbours upset of the so called shenanigans which made mainstream news, yes I will agree we sometimes are our own worst enemy as it relates to our behaviour but that is in the  minority and is not a reflection of the vast majority of Jamaica’s same gender loving community.

see more here:  That Innswood matter ……

The line by Mr Burke also suggest a class demarcation where is it perceived that more affluent men try to force other males from the lower socio economic strata into same sex activity as if those men are not innately homosexual or bisexual outside of the gay for pay phenomenon which is real but not as pronounced as made out in terms of non gay men getting involved.

also see:  “Nuh boi cyaan” (No Boy can’t) song reinforces stigma of same gender loving men as rich predators

The music also reflects this thinking that masculine men are getting down for money in order to keep up appearances as these days the “swagg” is the order of the day in the metrosexual revolution we are seeing while declaring an effemophobic line and anti cross dressing stance.

“Homosexuality and homosexual pedophilia are not synonymous. In fact, it may be that these two orientations are mutually exclusive, the reason being that the homosexual male is sexually attracted to masculine qualities whereas the heterosexual male is sexually attracted to feminine characteristics, and the sexually immature child’s qualities are more feminine than masculine. . . . The child offender who is attracted to and engaged in adult sexual relationships is heterosexual. It appears, therefore, that the adult heterosexual male constitutes a greater sexual risk to underage children than does the adult homosexual male.” - Nicholas Groth - a pioneer in the scientific study of sexual offenders against women and children, who has treated over 3000 child molesters over the course of two decades. A former director of the Sex Offender Program at the Connecticut Department of Corrections, Groth is the author of Men Who Rape: Psychology of the Offender, a work widely regarded as a classic textbook on the psychology of sexual violence.

Peace and tolerance

H

Human sexuality and the buggery law

NUMEROUS viewpoints have been expressed on the matter of homosexuality and the Jamaican buggery law since it was first mentioned in the political leadership debate leading up to the December 2011 general election.

Supporting and opposing viewpoints have included the notion that the church is picking on gays, that some personal rights can be sacrificed for general public morality, that we are irrational and selective in how we deal with minority groups in our society, and that we should tackle homosexuality through moral suasion rather than through the criminal law.

These approaches generally coalesce around the concepts of religious morality, human rights and justice as fairness. However, there are more fundamental issues to be considered before we form our opinions or make decisions based on morality or legal grounds.

The matter of human sexuality

Human sexuality speaks to how people experience the erotic and express themselves as sexual beings; how they express love and their connections to other human beings. Sexuality is fundamental to being human, and it includes at least five different elements: sex, gender, affective/emotional relationships, eroticism, and reproduction.

It is expressed and experienced through thoughts, fantasies, desires, beliefs, values, attitudes, activities, practices, roles and relationships (PAHO/WHO, 2000). As human beings we are assigned a ‘sex’ at birth based on the physical appearance of our external genital organs. We are defined as either ‘male’ or ‘female’, although one in every 2,000 infants is born with genitalia that is ‘in-between’ or ‘intersex’ (the word that has replaced the old term hermaphrodite).

No determination is made at birth of the chromosomal sex (genetic sex) of the newborn — whether XX (female) or XY (male) genotype in the somatic cells, or any other chromosomal expression. No determination is made of the gonadal sex (tissue present in the gonads — ovaries or testicles), and the assignment of a baby’s sex is based only on the external appearance of the phenotypic sex (the manifestations of sex as determined by endocrine influences).

‘Sex’ and ‘gender’ are similar but not the same. Sex refers to the anatomical organs as they appear to us at birth. Gender is a social construct that varies from one society to another, and is about various societies’ expectations of us based on our biological sexual characteristics (World Health Organisation – WHO).

Gender socialisation begins the moment we are born, based on the appearance of our external genitalia, and specific expectations about how we should behave and what we should or should not do begin at that time. What is expected of us as a boy or girl (no ‘in-between’ is allowed) — whether we cry too much or not, how big we are or how small, how pretty we are or not, or how aggressive we are, and so on.

This social construction and expectation is very powerful, and people treat gender roles as if they are inevitable and a product of ‘nature’. Is it inevitable that women cook meals while men sit and wait to be fed, or women mop and wash clothes while men watch TV? As men or women, specific behaviours are expected and society does not expect a man to behave like a woman or a woman to behave like a man! Worse — no ‘in-between’ is tolerated!

And so gender and gender roles are learnt, and these vary from one society to another. In contrast, however, is the matter of gender identity. This is the degree to which, in growing up, each person identifies as male, female, or ‘in-between’. It is an internal subjective framework that is constructed over time, and subjected to many influences — internal and external — which enables each person to organise a concept of ‘self’ and to perform socially in regards to his or her perceived sex and gender.

It is during this phase of development that persons psychologically perceive themselves to be male, female, bi-gender, or trans-gender. Trans-gender is a ‘continuum’ term for persons whose gender identity and expression does not conform to the norms and expectations traditionally associated with the sex assigned to them at birth.

Persons may also have masculine features, feminine features, androgynous (male and female) features, and a complex interaction of sexual attractions. And so as a society, we need to understand the background to our development and socialisation as human beings, in order to comprehend how a person born with anatomical organs that we judged at birth to be male could grow up with female gender identity, or vice versa, or ‘in-between’. Hence ‘tolerance’ of difference must be the order of the day!

The current law against buggery

When we view these issues against the current law on our books against buggery (and similar laws), we can understand why many persons are arguing that our laws be updated to include our current understandings of our social and physical development as human beings.

Let us now look at some of the implications of the current Jamaican law against buggery. To enforce it, we have to peer into people’s bedrooms and, if this is done, it has the potential of incarcerating a large portion of our adult population (both men and women) — prison space we can ill afford at this time.

Why is this possible? Because the buggery law prohibits anal intercourse. Full stop! It says nothing about sex between two men. So if a husband decides to have anal sex with his wife in the course of their love-making, or any man with his partner — they can be thrown in jail!

Now, would it be only the husband that would go to jail (he did the penetrating), or would the consenting wife be also incarcerated? It takes two to do the buggery act. What would be the welfare of their young children left at home when their parents are carted off to jail? What about the ensuing embarrassment?

These are just some of the possible implications of the current buggery law ‘on our books’. Are members of our society aware of all these implications? Shouldn’t we be talking about them? Why shouldn’t we review our buggery law at this time? Should we maintain the current level of injustice, simply because some persons fear a slippery slope?

The ethical answer to slippery-slope possibilities is not the denial of basic human rights, but rather moving to a just position and holding firm at that position.

Dr Derrick Aarons JP, MD, MSc (Bioethics), PhD is a Consultant Bioethicist, Palliative Care and Family Physician providing specialist advice in ethical issues in Jamaica and the Caribbean, and is a member of the Executive Council of RedBioetica UNESCO.

Website: www.derrickaaronsbioethics.com

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Human-sexuality-and-the-buggery-law_10743146#ixzz1mCHoUD2A