Mark Wignall on Buggery law review promise was a political sham

The Jamaica Observer's Mark Wignall formerly a staunch anti gay opponent has come out swinging in his piece done recently in the paper. As I have hinted on Gay Jamaica Watch and elsewhere I never viewed the suggestion by Mrs Simpson Miller for the Buggery Review as a promise and the hints given by first time member of parliament Damion Crawford in an interview on CVM TV in February 2012.

Mr Wignall wrote:

Very few of us know the main reason which drove then Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller to declare in her pre-election debate in 2011 that if her party was elected, a review of the buggery law would be introduced before Parliament for discussion and vote.

Everyone knew of the JLP's position, best expressed by former Prime Minister Bruce Golding in a BBC TV Hard Talk interview that he would not countenance any gays in his Cabinet. As for the PNP, the 2011 Simpson Miller declaration came as a shocker and could have been as a result of discussions/agreements our foreign affairs ministry had with its counterparts in the EU capitals and the US.

The possibility also exists that the powerful gay lobby at home, and especially those abroad holding our local entertainers' fingers to the fire, had used its natural leverage to extract that concession from the PNP.

Whatever the motivating factor, over a year has passed, and if the gay community thought that such clout could move ahead of the realities of our culture and politics and its desired change could happen in a year, it will have a long time and a safe distance from which it can watch the inaction.

One senses that concerns over the failure to ink a new IMF deal have sucked the energy out of the Government when in the first place, this Administration in its first year has never shown any real propensity for sprinting.

The Jamaican dollar is moving at a clip towards being worth one US cent. Business confidence, also caught up in jitters over the IMF, is low, and the poor exist only on the wishes and hopes generated by the roll of numbers four times per day. Who knows, maybe Supreme Ventures is providing the poor with what the Government cannot -- hope, packaged with possibilities four times per day.

Minister Paulwell has scored well with the telecoms industry, but with too many stops and starts in the energy ministry, any desires the Administration had that a lowering of the electricity rate due to fuel and power generation innovation would assist its push to attracting new investments in years two and three must now be put on hold.

Violent criminality is driving fear into our people and about half of our bright youngsters who are seeking loans to attend university may have to put their educational aspirations on hold too.

With so much on its plate and acting the confused bearer of the mandate, the PNP really has no time to introduce another uncooked item to the table. And who knows, maybe the promise was simply designed to meet the objectives of the December elections and not a day further.

Sometime ago, Assistant Commissioner of Police Les Green confirmed what a lot of us had already known. The vast majority of crime against the gay community was perpetrated by people of that same sexual persuasion. I make this point because the local gay lobby, in association with its counterparts abroad, has always used as a convenient whipping boy its claim of Jamaica being an extremely homophobic nation.

There is a significant amount of distaste for the lifestyle in Jamaica, and too many people I speak to tell me that gays must die. There is, however, some distance between suggesting a state of death for gays and actually going out on a death hunt for them. Nevertheless, the gay lobby continues to spread the falsehood that gay-on-gay crime in Jamaica is mainly about crime against gays.

While Jamaica is a violent country and a part of this is etched into our dancehall music, especially against gays, some concessions have been made by a few local acts who know that live tours abroad make up the vast bulk of their income. But even with that, the very active gay lobby will want to extract 100 per cent of what Portia Simpson Miller promised in 2011.

A Foolish Buggery law

If two adults of whatever mix of sexes wish to revert to the privacy of an enclosed space and indulge their sexual fantasies, it ought to be none of my business.

When I am with my special lady, the last thing I crave is intrusion or the peeping eye of the State, which is essentially what the buggery law is.

But here is where it gets complicated. The law is really about anal sex. If a normal couple -- a man and a woman -- are in a room having sex and the door should be pushed in by the police, what would the police say? 'Hold it, No one move! Let me see where everything is!'

It is utterly ridiculous. If the man is indulging in anal sex (ugh!) with the woman, he can be arrested. If two men are found nude in a room and they are in an embrace, which does not include anal penetration, it is my understanding that they can still be arrested under one of the indecency statutes.

As far as I am concerned, if two men are homosexual and they want to be with each other, nothing will stop them, just the same way a man will seek out his female lover. So why does the State require this right to peep inside people's bedrooms when people are simply doing what comes naturally to them?

That aside, if the law comes up for review and parliament votes in favour of change, it will be felt in a loss at the polls. The politicians know that the church lobby will rise up and many citizens will label an Administration which brings it on as 'b... man party.'

Simpson Miller knows this, and so do her members of parliament. If in 2011 she was moved simply by her conscience, she is not saying. I choose not to believe that, especially when I view the confluence of the activities of the gay lobby versus our deejays, numerous letters to the media from gay activists, and pressure from pro-gay foreign diplomats with close ties to the PNP.

Whatever moved her then will move her no further on the matter. In simple language, it's dead.

Buggery section of article ends

Meanwhile a United Nations representative locally gave some support to the review promise or suggestion as you see it fit to call it

The United Nations is encouraging the Jamaican government to decriminalise the buggery law.

Dr. Arun Kashyap, Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme, (UNDP) in Jamaica, says this should be done as it is in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Kashyap, speaking at a RJR Group news forum on Friday, said the UN was elated with Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller's statement in the debates leading up to the 2011 general election.
"We were very proud to hear when at that time the candidate and now Prime Minister very proudly said that she would have homosexuals in her cabinet …at this time if you talk to business leaders there is that acceptance but that doesn't mean that the whole country has accepted that. So rather than rushing through the process, I will always say how do you create the right opportunities and time to do it."

The UN representative said the organisation can assist the government in moving in that direction.
"We can start through advocacy, we can certainly start through building capacity, we can start by bringing in the best legal practices, ultimately its up to the Government , how they will handle it. In an ideal world, the earlier it happens the better it is but it also takes some time" he said.

Kashyap does not believe however that Jamaica's stance on homosexuality and buggery, will hinder the country receiving money from the Global Fund towards the country's fight against HIV/AIDS. There has been concern, that the country could face a reduction in funding for the fight against HIV/AIDS, due to laws banning buggery.

also hear my comments on the recent annoucement by the cabinet to delay the buggery review as suggested by the PM: