JAMAICA STAGES FIRST PUBLIC GAY PRIDE
“Imagine. Gay Pride in Jamaica:” The words of William Urich, the chair of the InterPride Committee on International GLBTI Human Rights, on the first public Pride event on the Caribbean island which was staged on Wednesday.
Officially, it was the ‘Walk for Tolerance’ from Howard Cooke Park, along Howard Cooke Boulevard and ending on the beach.
“Yesterday was an amazing day, here in Montego Bay,” he told UK Gay News. “My eyes well up at the very thought of the day’s outstanding and astounding success.”
Encouragingly, the walk had police support, Mr. Urich added.
Around 100 people took part in the walk, which was headed by Reverend Elder Nancy L. Wilson, the openly lesbian presiding bishop of the International Movement of Metropolitan Community Churches.
One participant commented: “I never thought I would live to see the day that this could happen in Jamaica.” And other ‘buzz phrases’ heard at the event included “I’m exercising my rights”, “I feel so liberated”, “I have validation”, and “exuberant.”
The Walk for Tolerance was organised by Jamaica AIDS Support for Life (JASL), Jamaica’s oldest and largest Non-Governmental Organisation working in the area of HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention and care.
Jamaica has been described as the most homophobic place in the world by Time magazine. Gay sex is punishable by up to seven years in prison under a law which dates back to British colonial rule.
Human Rights Watch has documented extensive violence and abuse against LGBT people across Jamaica. This includes mob attacks in which gay men have been seriously wounded.
I like the attention the walk is getting but I’m having a problem with how it is being portrayed. The international media has this walk as gay pride, and so does the local media. Mind you it was a participant who used those words and it may have well felt like gay pride to him, we can’t dictate how one feels of an event.
I was a participant, I was happy to have been there happy to have been part of history, but I feel it has been twisted by local media to highlight the LGBT group that was there; and if it were that that was at the heart of it all, I would feel cheated and used. This is not to say that I would not have participated.
I like the attention the walk is getting but I’m having a problem with how it is being portrayed. The international media has this walk as gay pride, and so does the local media. Mind you it was a participant who used those words and it may have well felt like gay pride to him, we can’t dictate how one feels of an event.
I was a participant, I was happy to have been there happy to have been part of history, but I feel it has been twisted by local media to highlight the LGBT group that was there; and if it were that that was at the heart of it all, I would feel cheated and used. This is not to say that I would not have participated.
tolerance. Hopefully this can be the start of awareness of the violence and a more tolerant society . Look at the first marches in SA and what has been achieved here.
Good luck to all those in Jamaica
Jamica Pride. Change isn’t coming anymore…….
Its HERE!!!