Jamaican Opposition sides with Govt on No to same sex marriage

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Source: Gay Jamaica Watch

Yesterday during the debate on the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms in Parliament the Opposition party the Peoples National Party PNP joined the institutional discrimination action to oppose Gay Marriage in Jamaica. The Charter which is being debated on the question of gender and rights sand freedoms for gays and lesbians in particular has had infused deliberately the invented gay marriage issue which was never a point of contention by the GLBT community or JFLAG for that matter.

As JFLAG recently described the gay marriage issue as a smoke screen to push the anti gay agenda and as I see it it's an invented discussion from very early in the debate as far back as 2006. Mrs Portia Simpson Miller on her feet in parliament said.

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PNP sides with GOVT on NO to gay marriage (if the player doesn't work)

The PNP seems to have forgotten that it has a large active GLBT support base and with her leadership being brought into question several times one wonders what will the community say or do about this. Obviously this is just to side with the popular view as our politicians are weak as rats and only pander to the public in order to avoid controversy and criticisms. The gay marriage issue was invented by the religious right chiefly among them is the Lawyer's Christian Fellowship with one of its chief personalities Shirley Richards.

See Gay Marriage - An Invented Issue by the christian right movement post with references to previous submissions made by them on the Charter of Rights Bill debate. Here is another grandstanding by our opportunist politicians who use issues like this to make themselves shine in the eyes of the public and again the GLBT community is side stepped in the name of convenience when even within the PNP at practically ALL levels of the party there were and are gays let us not fool ourselves for one minute. We must call it as we see it,

• what are we afraid of in giving rights and recognition to GLBT people?
• do people feel as of gays are somehow going to poison or infect others with homosexuality?
• are society's mores going to change simply because GLBT people are allowed their own set of rights?
• why is the GLBT community not talking more about this and other issues actively?
• why is everyone acting as if gays aren't in both political parties at various levels?

We have a long way to go in just doing the right thing without worrying about loss of political capital, the PNP now looks hypocritical in all this some time ago when Ernest Smith made those awful and unfortunate remarks in Parliament it was the PNP surprisingly who produced a press release condemning the PM's actions and his use of his Parliamentary privileges.

See these posts

• Gleaner Editorial - Credit to the PNP in the face of Mr Smith's stupidity
• Opposition, People's National Party condemns anti gay comments as dangerous precedence from GLBTQ Jamaica.

Institutionalised homophobia is on folks and we are again shafted in the name of political cowardice and theocracy with a government face.

H

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• Gay Marriage - An Invented Issue by the christian right movement
• Charter of Rights Bill a hit with US Embassy, even without LGBT rights included
• Section 3 of the Jamaican Constitution - Charter of Rights to replace it
• PM says JLP won't bow to gay rights lobby