If you were wondering if Jamaica is still the most homophobic country in the world the story of 17-year-old Dwayne Jones should set you straight.
On 22 July, gender non-conforming teen Dwayne Jones was attacked by a crowd of party-goers who chopped and stabbed him up then dumped what was left of his body in bushes along a roadside.
According to Urban Islandz, the teen was dressed as a woman and dancing with another man when a woman recognised him and told other people at the party that he was not female.
According to reports, one of the men ‘held onto the teen, searched him and discovered that he was in fact, male’.
Dwayne then became a victim of the homophobic mob. Police found his body the following morning and said they would increase their presence in the Irwin community as two brothers were also murdered there over a week before.
I love Jamaica, I really do but I don’t like some of her dirty ways.
If Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miler kept her promise to repeal the homophobic law passed in 1864 it would have sent a clear message to Islanders that things have to change. Instead she bowed to the pressures of religious groups and did a U-turn.
The recent challenge to the constitutionality of the 1864 buggery law has also hit a snag and a new hearing is set for October.
So it’s business as usual and lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered (LGBT) people are beaten, murdered and abused with impunity. There have been nine confirmed homophobic and transphobic killings in the past year.
Religion has no place in politics, especially when it seeks to exclude and deny rights to a group of people. It is easy to indoctrinate young and impressionable people through the church. Had Simpson-Miller stayed on track the world could have seen a more inclusive Jamaica in 10-20years. It took Britain many decades to get to the stage where gay marriage is given a green light. Why must Jamaica insist on being left back!
Many people boycott Jamaica because of it’s openly anti gay stance and the murder of Dwayne will just reinforce the call for sanctions against the island by Human Rights groups and others.
I know some people think I’m naïve because I want everyone to respect each other, value our humanity and embrace our differences but it won’t stop me from dreaming of the day when we can all do that.
Tragic…According to the bible, it is the same shed shed blood of Christ that cleanses the sin of all types of fornication. Church groups cause the name of God to be blasphemed among would-be converts when they support anti-gay legislation in any nation, that denies gay people the rights that other ‘fornicators’ legally enjoy without fear of arrest/prosecution and vigilantism.
Jamaica isn’t the only Black country that is anti gay. You will find that a lot of countries that were colonised and christianised by white people are extremists when it comes to gay people. It makes you wonder if Africans even cared about homosexuality before Christians put it in their heads that it was a bad thing.