Jamaican and Gay

The Voice, U.K.

Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding made comments which led to widespread debate and reinforced the image that the Caribbean island is massively homophobic. With such a volatile backdrop, reporter Garwin Davis in Jamaica ask one resident what it was like to be gay in such an environment.

"I can't help being the person I am," he declared, his defiant voice sounding somewhat relieved that he could say this openly. "I didn't just wake up one morning and decide that I wanted to be gay, I was born this way and so are a lot of other Jamaican men and women. We are no different from anybody else -- God made us this way and no, I am not ashamed of who I am."

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EDITORIAL - Homophobic silliness and a failure of leadership

Jamaica Gleaner News

Leadership often demands of the person who assumes that role a willingness to adopt what initially may be unpopular positions and, the ability to persuade and cajole those whom they lead to the embrace of new ideas.

Then Mr Golding was asked about past remarks that no homosexual could be a member of his Cabinet. Here, there was a bit of a waffling inconsistency: while he broadly viewed people on the basis of their abilities, he was under no compulsion to consider gays, in exercising his choice in forming a Cabinet.

When he was pressed on the issue, Mr Golding resorted to the tactics of the cornered - neither he nor Jamaica would be dictated to. And, on whether gays can ever sit in a Jamaican Cabinet: "Sure ... but not in mine."

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.

A potentially unintended consequence of Mr Golding's trenchant statement is that people interpret it as vindication of homophobic and anti-gay violence and for the liberation of the voyeurs.

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HARDtalk interviews Bruce Golding, Jamaican Prime Minister

In a HARDtalk interview shown on 20th May 2008, Stephen Sackur

talks to Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding

With an average of three murders a day and the police themselves accused of murder and corruption, Jamaica is one of the worlds most murderous countries.

He made it clear that while each Jamaican should have the right to privacy and equality before the law, the Government would not bow to international pressure for the recognition of gay rights.

"Jamaica is not going allow values to be imposed on it from outside. We're going to have to determine that ourselves and we're going to have to determine to what extent those values will adapt over time to change, change in perception, change in understanding as to how people live."

Questioned about statements he made in the past that homosexuals would not be allowed to serve in his Cabinet, Mr. Golding insisted that he would not change that view.

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Followup Story

sources: BBC News, Radio Jamaica