Writer wrong on gays
Published:Saturday | December 31, 2011 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
I wish to take issue with the approach taken by your letter writer Alex M. Lodge. He builds his case upon half-truths. For example, he says that people have preconceived notions about how homosexuals behave.
This is quite true, but it is also true that we all have preconceived notions about how others - not just homosexuals - behave.
Then, when we look around, as he suggests, we tend to know of many neighbours, hairdressers, relatives, friends and others who are not gay or even bisexual. So, to many of us, we are not aware that homosexuality is part of society.
What on earth does he mean by asking: What is natural? We all have a sense of what is natural. If you like, 'natural' reflects a statistical distribution of what the majority of persons in a society think. Should he do the research, he would find that the majority of Jamaicans think that homosexuality is unnatural.
The criticism he writes about, and the social injustice, reflect in a powerful manner what the majority of our people think. However, they have nothing to do with human rights. The laws which protect the rights of all Jamaicans do not determine the thoughts and beliefs of Jamaicans.
The typical Jamaican does not pry into the private lives of individuals, but he (or she) does not want to find men showing affection for men in public the way men show affection for women. This is immensely disturbing to the vast majority.
The law is silent on the matter, but customs and mores do not necessitate their validity in law. The issue is not whether it inflicts harm on other people. This is usually interpreted in a physical sense. The issue is that such overt behaviour deeply injures our moral sense. It produces a sense of outrage.
The writer's closing paragraph - that Government should provide basic rights, and so on - reflects muddled thinking. These rights are protected in our Constitution: they are not provided by Government, nor can they be withheld by Government. That would be a calamity. The rights in our Constitution apply to every citizen equally, and the Constitution is blind to a person's sexual orientation.
C. HAROLD