October - LGBT History, Breast Cancer Month & Coming Out Day (Oct 11th)

Coming Out Day is an internationally-observed civil awareness day for coming out and discussion about gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual and transgender (LGBT) issues. It is observed by members of the LGBT communities and their supporters (often referred to as "allies") on October 11 every year, or October 12 in the United Kingdom.


Coming out / being "open"


NCOD founders Rob Eichberg, Ph.D. and Jean O'Leary encouraged all people, of all sexual orientations, to "take your next step" in living openly and powerfully on October 11th.
It is highly encouraged for participants on this day to wear gay pride symbols, such as the pink triangle (gay men), the black triangle (lesbians), the Greek letter lambda, and rainbows in jewelry and on clothing.


History


The day was founded by Dr. Robert Eichberg and Jean O'Leary in 1988,acting on behalf of their organizations, The Experience (www.ExperienceYourPower.com) and National Gay Rights Advocates,[citation needed] in celebration of the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights one year earlier, in which 500,000 people marched on Washington, DC, United States, for gay and lesbian equality. National Coming Out Day events are aimed at raising awareness of the LGBT community among the general populace in an effort to give a familiar face to the LGBT rights movement.


Multi-national observance

In the United States, the Human Rights Campaign manages the event under the National Coming Out Project, offering resources to LGBT individuals, couples, parents and children, as well as straight friends and relatives, to promote awareness of LGBT families living honest and open lives. Candace Gingrich became the spokesperson for the day in April 1995.


Despite its name, National Coming Out Day (so called because it originated as an event in the United States) is in fact observed in many countries, including Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Croatia, Poland and the United Kingdom (in the UK it is celebrated on October 12). As of 2008, the Netherlands also has Coming Out Day on October 11.

For Jamaicans here on the rock that may not be so easy given the sensitivities involved and our active homophobia, one could maybe come out to close family members and friends and hope they keep it close to their chests.

If you feel you want to observe this day in your life please be cautious and review the information so expertly provided by my friend over at Gay Jamaicans United's Page

Also it is LGBT History Month for all of October more posts to come on that in the meantime see the LGBT History tab below this post or go HERE from GLBTQJA Wordpress

CLICK HERE for posts from GLBTQ Jamaica

or HERE for previous entries on this blog

Paul Kokoski continues his international homo hate letter writing campaign

It was only days ago that this homo hater wrote a letter in the Freeport Press in Nassau on his problem with gay adoption and grandstanding on several studies clearly skewed towards anti gay positions while some of his other pronouncements on studies cannot and have not been substantiated.

Only July 29th 2010 Gay Jamaicans United prepared an excellent post reminding us of the activities of this individual and his various submissions to every known publication carrying his homophobic line entitled "

The Jamaican Print Media: (Unknowingly?) Advancing Conservative Propaganda

(excerpted appearances)

Guyana Chronicle Online:

No place for gays in church: (25.07.10) Also Cut, copied and pasted for ‘Rome is right- no gay priest‘.

Arab News:

Consequentialism: “Conseqentialism essentially denies objective truth and leads to moral relativism. Ultimately it leads to a culture of death that today sanctions everything from contraception to abortion, homosexual activity, sex outside of marriage, divorce, sterilization, in-vitro fertilization, pornography, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia and even false notions of a just war.”

The Belfast Telegraph:

Homosexuality link couldn’t be more false: (13.05.10) Letter by Sean McGouran in response to Kokoski

Marianas Variety (Micronesia!)

Regarding the Pope’s condemnation of abortion and homosexuality

The Panama News:

Purifying the Catholic Church: (08.05.10)

The China Post:

Homosexuality, an objective disorder, evokes moral concern: (30.10.08)

The Phillipine Times

Supporting Vatican: (01.04.10)

Pravda (Russia):

Homosexuality tendencies must be accepted with respect or aversion? (31.05.06)

The Warsaw Voice

Defender of the Dignity of Human Life (12.04.05)

his latest installment reads:

Dear Editor,

This concerns the letter of August 20, "Include same-sex couples in Domestic Violence Act".

Maurice Tomlinson is incorrect in claiming that "same-sex couples are no more violence-prone than their straight counterparts". In seeking lawful protection for homosexuals, he also fails to mention that homosexual activity is against the law.

Homosexuality is not about "rights". It's about redefining truth and censuring all criticism so that militant homosexuals can be comfortable in their "lifestyle", without having to be disturbed by reality.

What the homosexual lobby and mass media will not tell you about homosexual behaviour is that it is abnormal, immoral and anti-life. It is not innate as some believe. The so-called "gay gene" has never been found.

They will also not tell you that scientific studies have proved that homosexuality is linked to paedophilia. For example, a 1992 study in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy found that homosexual men are three times more likely than straight men to engage in paedophilia. A 1988 study of 229 convicted child molesters published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour found that 86 per cent of paedophiles described themselves as homosexual or bisexual. Dr Richard Fitzgibbons, a US psychiatrist with vast experience in treating priests with paedophilia, has also stated: "Every priest whom I treated who was involved with children sexually had previously been involved in adult homosexual relationships."

Dr Michelle Cretella, a board member of the American College of Paediatricians also concluded from multiple studies that children reared by gay couples have gender confusion and are put at high risk for sexually transmitted diseases.

Cretella noted that homosexually behaving teens and young adults suffer increased rates of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, addictions and suicidal thoughts. In addition, boys who adopt a homosexual lifestyle because of the influence of their same-sex parents face a 30 per cent chance of being dead or HIV-positive by the age of 30.

At the core we are dealing here, not with "human rights" but with homosexuality and the destruction of the family unit — the fundamental cell of society.

Paul Kokoski

Canada

pkokoski@mountaincable.net

A response to Ian Boyne's piece - ‘Do Gays Have a Choice?’

On Noverber 15, 2009, the Sunday Gleaner published an article written by Ian Boyne entitled ‘Do gays have a choice‘. The following response is an open letter to the writer.

***

Hello Mr. Boyne,

I am a faithful reader of your work in the Gleaner. Last year I read the piece, ‘Do gays have a choice?’, but it wasn’t until today when a friend reposted in on a blog that I felt compelled to respond.

I feel a little queasy. The tone of the piece concerns me. And it’s not because I have ‘scant respect for the canons of reasons.’ From what I gather, your commentary is a well articulated opposition to what you term ‘the propaganda war’ of the ‘powerful Gay Rights Lobby’. Your words flow so eloquently that people might forget that not all the information that gay rights groups disseminate is propaganda, and that not all gay men are organized in powerful lobby groups- though, that is the assumption many Jamaicans have of gays in the developed world. Surely, you can appreciate how misleading Jamaicans in this way serves to affirm their views on homosexuality, which are often as ‘irredeemably intolerant, glandular and visceral’ as you describe many gay people.

So, scientists haven’t discovered a gay gene. It is well established, however, that the factors that determine sexual orientation are complex. It is dangerous to reduce understandings of sexuality to the age-old ‘nature’ vs. ‘nurture’ argument. Like you, I find it hard to think that ‘nurture’ could have any profound impact in a place like Jamaica, where we are indisputably nurtured (for want of a stronger term) to be heterosexual. I can promise you, Ian, that many of us try to change. Your citing that change is indeed possible, though enormously challenging, might just encourage some LGBT people, who have been socialized to hate their sexual selves, to try a little harder. Psychologists have long documented that such efforts are quite self-destructive- you acknowledged this in the article.

The piece ends with a series of questions challenging ‘gay’ logic. I don’t appreciate the generalization. Further, I can’t help but be concerned with the way you phrased the leading questions- for the sake of argument. You likened homosexuality to pedophilia and incest in the penultimate section (as taboo sexual relations that people have strong urges to do, but that we continue to proscribe- and supposedly should continue to proscribe), catering heavily to the slippery slope argument that is often used to thwart advances of pro-LGBT legislation. The right to privacy and protections from harassment and abuse shouldn’t be granted only after the ‘born gay’ question is answered. These are matters of citizenship and human rights.

The few comments on the post tell the story of the message conveyed by the article. Perhaps you think too highly of your audience’s intelligence. You have unknowingly bolstered blatantly homophobic positions, though your original intention was to facilitate ‘a cold, rational, dispassionate discourse on [not against] homosexuality.’ Gay people fight long and hard in their powerful lobbies, advocating for a host of rights, but they don’t always speak for Jamaicans. Many gays and lesbians here would be content with the right to live and the right to self-determination. Surely, we don’t need to be organized in a powerful, overbearing, propaganda wielding lobby for you or anyone else to understand this.

I have long stopped trying to persuade people that I am ‘normal’. I have discovered that the most effective way to end homophobic rhetoric is by coming out to people. It’s difficult to say ‘dem fi ded’, when one knows that their brother, or their daughter is gay- all the rationalizing, moralizing and philosophizing diminishes in importance. Love is the most convincing argument for the tolerance and acceptance of same-sex loving people. So, do gays have a choice? I don’t know. But I know that I am gay, and I don’t think the answer to that question should affect how people regard my right to live and love a consenting adult male.

GJU