May 22, 2008
Jamaica P.M.'s Anti-Gay Comments Criticized
Steve Weinstein READ TIME: 1 MIN.
The Jamaica Gleaner News took the island nation's prime minster to task in an editorial. Prime Minister Bruce Golding, in a widely circulated video, Golding told a BBC interviewer he would not have a homosexual in his cabinet.
Golding went on to defend his country's rampant homophobia, which Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other groups have labeled the worst by far in the Western Hemisphere. Gay men have been routinely beaten while police look on. Gay rights advocates have been taken from their homes and murdered.
The newspaper's editorial excoriated the prime minister for "playing to a domestic political audience."
"Jamaica and Mr Golding can expect further pressure from the international community, which is the lesser of the outcomes from the PM's performance. His greater failure is that of leadership," the editorial added.
There have been calls for boycotts and other forms of pressure to try to influence policy. Dancehall artists who advocate killing gay men and lesbians have routinely been protested and banned in Western nations.
Steve Weinstein has been a regular correspondent for the International Herald Tribune, the Advocate, the Village Voice and Out. He has been covering the AIDS crisis since the early '80s, when he began his career. He is the author of "The Q Guide to Fire Island" (Alyson, 2007).
