Golding and Simpson Miller failed to lead article clearly shows the cowardice of our political leaders to remove any hints of rights or freedoms to GLTBQ Jamaicans because of fear, ignorance or plain hypocracy, they play to the gallery to sure up political capital.
Coincidentally we have a wonderful example of the US Hate Crime Bill being passed as we pussyfoot with our own Charter of Rights debate, a set of rights set out that have been on and off the nation's and parliament's agenda for the past 17+ years with Joint select committee after joint select committees arguing over definition of words such as "sex" "gender" worrying that the gay lobby will try to move an action to ask for marriage rights. The removal of an entire section on discrimination of persons by sexual orientation the very thing that this US bill has sought to make tantamount in as far as the death of Matthew Shepard is concerned with agitation from his family, rights groups & individuals and some state officials for nearly ten years.
see the Hate Crimes Prevention Act (Introduced in Senate)
Charter of Rights Bill a hit with US Embassy, even without LGBT rights included
Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed in the US
They are those who use the procreation arguments to justify their bigoted agenda totally overlooking the need to protect the minority and least amongst us. As one radio host puts it "The rule of the tyrannical majority" Jamaica has not grasped the concept of rights and freedoms for all and wish to be selective about who should or should not enjoy them, it is not universal in our context.
So what can we learn from this wonderful example from our neighbour up north?
my answers, you can form your own please:
- Learn from the actual verbiage
- Engage in discussions about rights, tolerance, strategies used to devise our own
- Confront opposition in a meaningful and respectful manner
- Community education drives to get persons to understand the importance of universal rights
- Examine the coverage granted in the US bill for our own adoption
- Demand our politicians stop hiding behind "red herring" topics and pontifications
- Embrace the tolerant citizenry for peaceful co-existence
- Resolute stance on violence and verbal attacks from homophobes
- Case studies where appropriate for analysis
Peace
H
3 comments:
Ironically,the Shepard Hate Crimes Bill seeks to target exactly the kinds of violence that Jamaican dancehall artists encourage.
rightly so, pity our leaders are cowards and just use issues like homosexuality as a football to sure themselves up
We have a looooonngggg way to go unless someone or persons with vision comes forth
The lyrics to this song is the best response to this and other comments of these issues. One (Universal Theme Song), by Johnnie Newkirk Jr. @ www.rmusic.com/unsigned/johnnie_newkirk_jr.html Liste and Learn.
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