Orville Taylor | Boom! US say goodbye to gay discrimination at workplace

We know it was coming, and it dropped like the bomb, boom! Over the years, I have said it, and every time I spoke, some tribalist who thinks he or she is speaking for sexual minorities tries to jump on my back when all I was doing was telling the truth. My contention was that too many people, both nationals and non-nationals, say exaggerated and untrue things about this little piece of rock in the Caribbean Sea because it suits their interests or just out of innocent and blissful ignorance.

As one of those Jamaicans who have been privileged to teach American students, my concern was always that they develop an eye for facts not grand narratives and stereotypes and call a spade a shovel. In doing so, they will do more to enhance their great nation by strengthening the areas that need work and build on those in which they are already strong. As a public intellectual, whose full-time job is to educate scores of descendants of enslaved Africans, slave owners, indentured labourers, and more recent migrants, my personal tagline is “where the truth comes to live and the lies come to die”.

Therefore, in 2006, when New York-based Time Magazine writer Tim Padgett wrote an article titled “The Most Homophobic Place on Earth?” I was behind myself, with no one backing me up. True, it was a question and not a statement, but not everyone who reads a headline or topic tries to focus on the end. Therefore, many took it as a declaration.

Doubtless, there were cases of persons who were sexual minorities being verbally and physically abused, and a number have been killed. Yet, as a researcher and social scientist, my suspicion was that the data did not bear out the perception. Doubtless, we had a few high-school dropouts who were singing anti-gay songs, but most were not. As a matter of fact, many American rappers used the ‘F’ word derisively as often as white supremacists use the ‘N’ word.

So, to the data I went and was unsurprised that sexual minorities were at least three times more likely to be killed in the USA than Jamaica. And those are the statistics from the activist groups. Say all you want, the worst thing you can do is take a person’s life. Therefore, 100 men calling another a ‘B-man’ to his face and jeering at him is not the equivalent of two men being killed, although the abuse cases would be 100:2 here.

UNCOMFORTABLE

Nonetheless, it could be argued that there was homophobia in the attitudes of Jamaicans because the majority of us are repugned, uncomfortable, or dislike same-sex relationships and thus are ‘phobic.’ Then the native-bred-J-FLAG conducted its own surveys and found that 73 per cent of Jamaicans have no fear of being approached sexually by gays, 85 per cent say gays do not make them nervous, and 90 per cent said they would not end a friendship if they discovered that their friend was gay. However, admittedly, more than 60 per cent would be uncomfortable living in the same household as a gay person, and 58 per cent feel the same way about a gay teacher teaching their children. Nonetheless, the overwhelming majority, almost 70 per cent, had no desire to do them violence.

Interestingly, the Harris polls show 30 per cent of Americans not wanting LGBT members at their place of worship, their children taught by a gay teacher.

Yet, prejudice is one thing, discrimination is another. As long as one’s prejudice does not stop someone’s ‘eating dem food’, then it is of little consequence. In Jamaica, our labour laws, enforceable before our Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT), present a narrow band for which a dismissal can be justifiable. I will bet my bottom dollar that if one were dismissed for declared sexual orientation, the IDT would reinstate them faster than the banks restore money hacked from your account.

Last week, the American Supreme Court ruled that it was unlawful to dismiss persons for being gay. It might have surprised you, but up to then, 31 states could justifiably fire one for one’s sexuality. What this demonstrates is that the national consensus regarding gay rights is nowhere near where we are led to believe. Had there been, then Congress would have done it and not the courts.

This is the same case of Lawrence v. Texas 2003, the definitive case which said that all sodomy laws were to be rescinded. That is not long ago.

I am not trying to advocate or criticise anything here, but both our nations are incomplete democracies and still finding validation for our mottos, ‘ E Pluribus Unum’ and ‘ Out of Many One People’.

- Dr Orville Taylor is head of the Department of Sociology at The UWI, radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.