Backing gays is political suicide
Published:Saturday | August 27, 2011 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
What Jamaica needs at this critical juncture of national affairs, where the very norms of traditional heterosexual lifestyle are, from some perspectives, being seen as just an alternative to homosexuality, is more heavy promotion of nuclear-family values.
Recently, especially since New York state legalised same-sex legal unions, one sees copycat letters daily in our Jamaican newspapers urging 'love' and acceptance of gays, all to one end, in my opinion. The end vision, I believe, is to use social pressure and the threat of the vote to try to change the laws which make certain presumed acts of male homosexuals (buggery) illegal.
I do not support such revocation, assuming this is the endgame vision of current public pressure tactics. However, we can see the effects of this burgeoning pro-gay social pressure in the cautious way spokespersons for electronic media houses couched their refusal to run a gay promotional advert recently. The psychological vehicle used by the gays was the reference to the human traits of compassion and tolerance, which most humans respect, but do not always practise.
too many social problems
Developing a society that 'works' is a complex undertaking, since humans have such diverse interests. There was a time in the recent past when extreme 'gay-bashing', even leading to physical injury was fashionable. I think that gay lobbyists have done good work to end such severe abuse of civil rights, but Jamaica has enough problems dealing with teenage pregnancies, and with unstable heterosexual unions which can predispose children to crime, to now mainstream another lifestyle with its own potential to further disrupt efforts to achieve social order and stability.
Nobody nowadays is going to kick down the bedroom doors of adults who, consensually, and without fanfare, engage in homosexual acts. It's like the case with ganja. Apart from the Rastas, who have engaged in the herb lifestyle as a religious sacrament, and who, by and large, do not flaunt their habit inappropriately, many Jamaicans use the herb to make tea; others even smoke a spliff in their backyard.
But activists, in a misguided attempt to mainstream this practice, will light up at sports events at the National Stadium, or blow smoke in a policeman's face in an act of appalling and illegal defiance. Legalising ganja, or buggery, would not be approved by the vast majority of Jamaicans at this time and any political regime who sought to do so would be commiting political suicide.
CATHY BROWN