January 27

Friday, 27th January 2012

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Gay Activist congratulates Jim Ready (l) and Barney Frank (r) on their forthcoming wedding.

Meanwhile, back in the real world:

“I should have been flying from Jamaica my country of birth and, until very recently, my home. After the ceremony I should be returning there to celebrate with fellow activists. But this time there’s no going home. In August last year I married Tom, a former police officer and a pastor in the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto. Media reports of my marriage, in Jamaica, have led to an increase in the threats against my life and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has written to the Jamaican government for the second time in a year inquiring what measures it will take to guarantee my safety. So far, the government has failed to respond. Threats are nothing new for me. It’s only the intensity that’s changed. I’m a lawyer and activist in Jamaica, which has the distinction of being regarded as one of the most violently homophobic countries in the world.”

So writes Jamaican gay activist Maurice Tomlinson in the Guardian. He is off to collect an award for his work but he cannot go home again.

“In a recent survey 82% of Jamaican people said they were prejudiced against gay people. Vigilante attacks against gay men are common – at least 35 people have been murdered because of their sexuality since 1997. Last year, two men were hacked to death because they were gay. The latest victim was a 16-year-old youth chopped to death in his home by early morning invaders because of his “questionable relations” with another man.”

Lance Corporal James Wharton was one of the first openly gay men in the Army, a trooper in the Household Cavalry Regiment. Recently he spent three days touring schools in Ayrshire and East Lothian and hopes to take his crusade into more schools across the country after he was given a hero’s welcome by hundreds of pupils. “Simply to have 250 teenagers listening and discussing the subject of sexuality through my own experiences is remarkable. I do still think there is a problem in schools, especially with the all too common use of homophobic language in playgrounds. My hope is that visits like mine will bring an end to this problem and young lesbian, gay and bisexual people won’t have to feel that their sexuality is something people can use against them.”

Oh those canny Catholics. For some time authorities at a Catholic establishment in Canada have been considering what to do about a request to set up a Gay-Straight Alliance. Cannot do that, to Catholics, gays are The Devil. They finally worked out what to do. They have set up a “Respecting Difference Club”.

By their prejudice, ignorance and homophobia shall ye know them. Stay away.

SP

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