Thursday, March 28, 2024

WILD COOT: LGBT organisations

Date:

Share post:

WHAT WE IN BARBADOS heard last Monday as news reached us, that 49 people had been assassinated in Orlando on Sunday night at a LGBT club, was a disaster waiting to happen. It was a confusion of intolerance, religion and guns availability on the ready market. The perpetrator seemed to have isunderstood the mood of new America times.

The movements of LGBT people are here to stay, and assassinating 49 and injuring another 50 will only be seen as a way to show intolerance. It will make the movement stronger but, on the other hand, more of this will happen unless measures are taken to curb the Wild West syndrome. When that reaction from an individual is combined with religious ignorance, that is a recipe for disaster.

The movement of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual and Transgender Organisations is now worldwide and the slaughter will not be a deterrent for people looking to join the merry band. It comes with the freedom of being who one wants to be without the necessary childhood social responsibilities.

Once the people of California were its main herald, but now movement of rainbow people has sprung up all over the world. The significant role played by the United States cannot be ignored. Is it good or is it bad? In fact, some first world countries have used leverage of donations to lesser countries that do not legally support the LGBT way of life. For example, there are some countries of Africa such as Uganda where homosexuality is not officially tolerated, and where there is a law prohibiting the activities of LGBT people.

But where does the Caribbean stand in all of this? What do our laws have to say on these matters? Barbados in particular has refused to be coerced into revoking laws on the illegal activity of homosexuals with minors. Immense pressure has been brought to bear even from our past masters for us to revoke current laws, with threats of not providing monetary assistance. We have not budged. Yet one could not find a country more tolerant of the LGBT community. This goes back for years.

Remember the West Coast peculiarity? We even have public yearly competitions to see who will be the flag bearer. We even have public knowledge where practitioners ply their nightly service. The LGBT community here is certainly not silent. Like accusations of indiscriminate spending in statutory corporations; like a distributor organisation adjusting expiration dates on products and endangering the health of the public; like tolerating spurious and usurious banking charges; like granting tax relief to visiting investors and claiming extraordinary foreign exchange increases; like the open defiance of Town Planning’s inconsistent rulings. Barbados is a tolerant country in which the LGBT community can survive. Even when we get criticisms from outside, it is like water on a duck’s back. They will die a natural death in a few days’ time.

But in some other Caribbean countries, the issue of what LGBT practitioners do does not sit well. Take for instance Jamaica. Many of its artistes are banned from entering the United States because of confrontational words regarding LGBT practitioners in their lyrics.

Quite often, while not on the scale of Orlando, we hear of villagers in Jamaica taking the law into their own hands and executing community justice. It is a known fact that homosexuality is not tolerated in Jamaica. So if you may be an official guest there, why would you fly the LGBT flag at half-mast at your embassy for the Orlando massacre? You are obviously sending a strong message to the country where you are only a guest. Then when there is an objection from the country, you ask why?

Then you are saying in another breath that you are against bullying. Obviously the person bullied has no explanation save and except to say that you have no respect for their country. In regards to Jamaica, that is reliant on the handouts of institutions over which the US wields considerable influence, then it may be a possible case of bullying.

But the US is paying for the lack of religious guidance for the youth, what it calls children’s rights. At my schools, religious knowledge was part of the curriculum at both primary and secondary levels. The Wild Coot has a school certificate in divinity at Ordinary Level. Amen!

 • Harry Russell is a banker. Email: quijote70@gmail.com

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Related articles

Four killed during stabbing spree in Illinois

Illinois, USA - Four people have been killed and at least five injured after a man armed with...

Guilty of having sex with minor

The St Michael man who was earlier this month on trial in the No. 4A Supreme Court, accused...

Disgraced ‘Crypto King’ to be sentenced

Sam Bankman-Fried, the former billionaire crypto boss who was convicted of fraud and money laundering last year, will...

Lester Vaughan update coming

One month after the closure of Lester Vaughan School, teachers and concerned parents will have a chance to...