September 9, 2007
We’d Ask Brian Williamson to Comment, But They Already Murdered Him
From Newsweek:
Land of Reggae and Homophobia
While governments in a number of Latin American countries and elsewhere begin to recognize the legal rights of same-sex partners, Jamaica is bolstering its image as one of the most virulently anti-gay societies in the Western Hemisphere. Between February and July of this year, 98 gay men and lesbians were targeted in 43 different mob attacks, according to the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays. Four lesbians were raped, four gay men were murdered, and the houses of two gay men were burned down. On Valentine’s Day the police took two hours to reach a Kingston pharmacy where a crowd shouting anti-gay epithets had cornered three men; then the constables allegedly attacked an activist who had tried to help the men, striking him in the abdomen with a rifle butt and slapping him repeatedly in the face.
. . .
Spokesmen for the country’s ministers of justice and national security declined repeated requests from Newsweek for interviews. …
. . .
The political climate isn’t likely to change as long as evangelical Christian churches, whose congregations already outnumber those of the mainstream Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, continue to grow in size. …
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Filed under: Hate Crimes, Jamaica, Radical Religious Right
