... think this could happen in the U.S.? The reports of hate crimes against gay people rise after a government leader makes anti-gay rights comments in public.

Jamaican PM Blasted For Homophobic Remarks

Posted: May 21, 2008 - 1:00 pm ET

(London) Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding is being blasted at home and in London for remarks he made about gays and lesbians during an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Golding condemned Britain and other Commonwealth countries for criticizing the treatment of gays in the Caribbean nation.
''Jamaica is not going to allow values to be imposed on it from outside,'' he said during the interview. Golding is in London on an official visit to the UK.
Asked if he would ever appoint an openly gay person to his cabinet the Prime Minister bristled, saying "never". Golding told the BBC that he has the right to make that decision and to form a Cabinet that represents the Jamaican people.
Golding has been a staunch supporter of maintaining Jamaica's sodomy law.
Gay sex is illegal in Jamaica, punishable by ten years in jail, with the possibility of hard labor.
Jason McFarlane, a spokesman for Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), said Golding's remarks were likely to incite more violence against gays in the country.
The situation for gays in the Caribbean nation has been of concern to other Commonwealth countries and international human rights groups for several years following a number of violent attacks.
Jamaica has been described as having the worst record of any country in the New World in its treatment of gays and lesbians.
One of the most recent attacks occurred on January 29 when a group of men approached a house where four males lived in the central Jamaican town of Mandeville, and demanded that they leave the community because they were gay, according to Jamaican human rights activists who spoke with the victims.
Later that evening, a mob returned and surrounded the house. The four men inside called the police when they saw the crowd gathering. The mob started to attack the house, shouting and throwing bottles.
Those in the house called police again and were told that the police were on the way. Approximately half an hour later, 15-20 men broke down the door and began beating and slashing the inhabitants.
Human Rights Watch, quoting local activists said that police did not arrive until a half hour after the mob had broken into the house – 90 minutes after the men first called for help.
One of the victims managed to flee with the mob pursuing. A Jamaican newspaper reported that blood was found at the mouth of a nearby pit, suggesting he had fallen inside or may have been killed nearby.
The police escorted the three other victims away from the scene; two of them were taken to the hospital. One of the men had his left ear severed, his arm broken in two places, and his spine reportedly damaged.
There have been no arrests.
The attack echoes another incident in the same town on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007 when approximately 100 men gathered outside a church where 150 people were attending the funeral of a gay man.
According to mourners, the crowd broke the windows with bottles and shouted, "We want no battyman [gay] funeral here. Leave or else we’re going to kill you. We don’t want no battyman buried here in Mandeville."
Several mourners inside the church called the police to request protection. After half an hour, three police officers arrived.
Human Rights Watch said that instead of protecting the mourners, police socialized with the mob, laughing along at the situation.
A highway patrol car subsequently arrived, and one of the highway patrol officers reportedly told the churchgoers, "It’s full time this needs to happen. Enough of you guys."
The highway patrol officers then drove off. The remaining officers at the scene refused to intervene when the mob threatened the mourners with sticks, stones, and batons as they tried to leave the service. Only when several gay men among the mourners took knives from their cars for self-defense did police reportedly take action by firing their guns into the air. Officers stopped gay men from leaving and searched their vehicles, but did not restrain or detain members of the mob, Human Rights Watch said.
More than 30 gay men are believed to have been murdered since 1997 J-FLAG says. In most of the cases the killers have never been brought to trial.
Arrests, however have been made in several cases which received international attention.
In 2004 Brian Williamson, Jamaica's leading LGBT civil rights advocate was brutally murdered. He had been stabbed at least 70 times in the neck. A 25 year old man is currently serving a life sentence for the murder.
In December 2005 Lenford "Steve" Harvey who ran Jamaica AIDS Support for Life was killed.
Harvey was shot to death on the eve of World AIDS Day. (story) His organization provided support to gay men and sex workers. Four men were arrested almost a year later.
In 2006 the bodies of two women believed to have been in a lesbian relationship were found dumped in a septic pit behind a home they shared. The killers of Candice Williams and Phoebe Myrie have not been caught.
Students at University of the West Indies in Kingston rioted last year as police attempted to protect a gay student and escort him from the campus. The incident began when the student was chased across the campus by another student who claimed the gay man had attempted to proposition him in a washroom.
The same year a young man plunged to his death off a pier in Kingston after reportedly being chased through the streets by a mob yelling homophobic epithets.
In February, 2007 three men in "tight jeans" and wearing what some witnesses described as makeup were cornered by a mob of 2000 in a drugstore. There were yells of "kill them" along with gay slurs and demands the three be sent out "to face justice". Police had to fire teargas into the crowd to rescue the three.
Reggae, or Jamaican dancehall music, is blamed for fueling homophobia. Reggae star BujuBanton's hit song Boom Boom Bye Bye which threatens gay men with a "gunshot in ah head".

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"No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities."

...Christian Nestell Bovee

This is sick. Some people think being gay is a crime, yet murdering them is not - what is wrong with this picture? I'm glad I don't live in Jamaica, not because I'm gay which I'm not, but because I'd hate to live in an environment so filled with hatred and bigotry.

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"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty." Thomas Jefferson

Walter Mondale: "George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize." George Bush: "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time."

I don't see how this is "government sancationed" when the police went in and saved the suspected gay men from the people. That would seem to indicated that it is not government sancationed.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

OE, it took the police an hour and a half to get there, which tells me the police didn't really care what was happening to those men in the meantime while one was being murdered and the others assaulted and mutilated.

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"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty." Thomas Jefferson

Walter Mondale: "George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize." George Bush: "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time."

You people need to shove all this political correctness crap up your backsides! Why are we supposed to just drop everything and start feeling outraged because some homosexual gets murdered when you people aren't starting threads and trying to impose outrage on everyone else when white heterosexual males are murdered?

The only thing that would make being gay a crime is the passage of legislation. The only things that make murdering gays not a crime is the absence of legislation against murder or the passage of legislation declaring the murder of homosexuals legal. If you don't want being gay to be a crime then do something about the legislation. If you want it to be a crime to murder then do something about the legislation. Since murder is a crime in pretty much all of the civilized world, then instead of whining because it was a member of a politically correct group that was murdered how about enforcing the law!

YOU, of all people, should be in agreement with this statement the Prime Minister made: ''Jamaica is not going to allow values to be imposed on it from outside." But your hypocrisy is clear: you feign libertarian ideals but want to interfere in the internal affairs of other nations when those nations have policies that are politically incorrect. We don't have to like Jamaica's laws. We don't have to like what the Prime Minister said about refusing to hire openly homosexual people (meaning people who openly engage in behavior that, in Jamaica, is a crime). But Jamaica is an independent nation and can run its internal affairs as it sees fit.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Well, since you weren't there and you haven't talked to the police, you don't know why it took an hour and a half to get there. Since it did take the police an hour and a half to get there, I would certainly be wanting the police department investigated by some independent source outside the government.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

that's the POINT

the government SANCTIONS this - as evidenced by the PM's statements

did you actually read this article - or are you just posting knee-jerk reactions.

how about
that is government sanctioning

__________________


"No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities."

...Christian Nestell Bovee

"In February, 2007 three men in "tight jeans" and wearing what some witnesses described as makeup were cornered by a mob of 2000 in a drugstore. There were yells of "kill them" along with gay slurs and demands the three be sent out "to face justice". Police had to fire teargas into the crowd to rescue the three."

As for the one with the 90 minutes, I don't listen to activists on details because people have a tendency to push their agenda, and I know what their agenda is. Just like I know the agenda of the democrat party, and the republican party, and the catholic church, and the pro-gun activists, and the anti-gun activists and so on. If it is only the activists that are saying 90 minutes and not the news or the police records or anything else than I take it as highly suspicious.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

No, the Prime Minister's statements are not evidence that the government sanctions these incidents. What might serve as evidence of government sanction is if the government (and I don't mean just the local police) doesn't do anything to enforce existing Jamaican law (laws against things like murder, assault, etc.) with regard to these specific incidents.

__________________
A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Who said we are supposed to drop everything?

Show me where I hypocritically said that we should interfere with the affairs of Jamaica or any other nation.You can't because I didn't. I said I'm glad I don't live in Jamaica and explained why. This is an ad hominem attack and I don't understand your outrage about ideas I never proposed.

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"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty." Thomas Jefferson

Walter Mondale: "George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize." George Bush: "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time."