LATEST HOMOPHOBIC ATTACK

Why such a series of anti-gay attacks in Jamaica?

Is it a populist homophobic response to human rights activists’ challenges to the country’s anti-sodomy law, to TV stations’ prohibition on ads urging tolerance for LGBT people, and the controversies over anti-gay singer Queen Ifrica?

How much blame should be assigned to the extreme language of anti-gay conservative Christian leaders?

If Jamaican television stations hadn’t refused to air pro-tolerance public-service announcements, would the level of anti-gay hatred be lower?

If preachers emphasized the importance of love as much as they decry homosexuality, would LGBT people in Jamaica be safer?

In the latest incident, a mob surrounded two allegedly gay men who were involved in a minor traffic accident on Aug. 26 in Old Harbour in southern Jamaica.

Police intervened to shield them from the mob at the police station and then helped them reach safety, according to a TV news report uploaded to YouTube by GLBTQ Jamaica under the headline “Mob Descends on Old Harbour Police Station to demand Gay Men.”

Anti-gay violence of July 22 to Aug. 22:

Other recent attacks in Jamaica have included:

1) The murder of 17-year-old cross-dresser Dwayne Jones at a public street-party in St. James (the Montego Bay area) on July 22. Jones was attacked after a female party-goer complained that Jones was a man dressed as a woman.

2) A mob attack on a Kingston police officer suspected to be gay on Aug. 1. He had to be rescued by other officers firing shots in the air and firing teargas into the crowd.

3) A mob attack on the home of two gay persons in St. Catherine, also on Aug. 1. They too had to be rescued by police.

4) A mob attack on a cross-dresser in St. Catherine on Aug. 10. The police again had to rescue the individual.

5) A mob attack on five allegedly gay men, who were trapped in their house in Green Mountain on Aug. 22 until police arrived and escorted them to safety.

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