Ian Boyne

To ensure a happy (not synonymous with 'gay') landing in Jamaica today after his British trip, Prime Minister Bruce Golding had no option but to insist he would not bend over to accommodate the gay agenda.

He might not have impressed the British elite with his BBC Hardtalk interview, but he has earned a hero's welcome back home.

And he has certainly been getting a lot of 'forwards' in Jamaica, as they say in the Jamaican dancehall, even though many cosmopolitan Europeans would scorn his 'backward' views on homosexuality.

Had no choice

Golding has never been accused of being a political dunce. There is no way he could be facing a likely national election this year and afford the luxury of a faux pas on this most lethal of issues.

The rich and powerful gay people in Jamaica who support and fund the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), as well as working-class 'gay' Labourites, will just have to understand that politics has to take precedence over what they might consider principle.

Sure, they would love to see their political leader "show some leadership on this issue", rather than pandering to the 'mindless mob', as they would characterise it.

But they are not so driven by self-interest not to realise that no Jamaican politician could ever survive by making any statement that is even middle-of-the-road on this super hot-button issue of homosexuality.

Some of Mr Golding's human rights friends at home were forced - I am sure reluctantly - to criticise him publicly but they themselves had no choice, and I am sure Mr Golding understands that too.

It is impossible to have a rational, dispassionate and intellectually rigorous discussion on homosexuality in Jamaica. Mark you, it is so in metropolitan capitals, too, for either, as in the case of most parts of Europe, the gay lobby is so strong and so forceful as to effectively marginalise any contrary position, or in the case of the fundamentalist belt of America, Bible-thumping trumps reason.

Fear for their lives

In Jamaica, we add venom, hate, violence and blind rage. Listening to a discussion on homosexuality in Jamaica provides the perfect example of a dialogue of the deaf and dumb.

First, it is an indictment on us as a society that gay people cannot come out freely and forcefully on television and debate us in the 'straight' community on this sensitive but important issue.

That they have to fear for their lives is something about which all of us as decent, civilised people ought to be ashamed.

We should take no comfort in the fact that foreigners exaggerate the degree of hate which we have for homosexuals in Jamaica, or, as Kevin O'Brien Chang reminded us on morning radio last week, that we don't execute them by law, as in Iran!

Offensive behaviour

As I have said many times, gay people themselves exhibit high levels of intolerance, arrogance and hubris, which is grating and off-putting. The over-compensation might be due to the history of repression and prejudice, but I find many gay people to be overly defensive, dismissive and irrational when it comes to discussing homosexuality seriously.

They have even convinced the rest of us to reflexively use the words 'homophobic' or 'homophobia' to describe any disagreement with the homosexual lifestyle.

They have so reframed the discussion that even the possibility that there could be good moral or philosophical arguments against homosexuality is not considered. That the objection to homosexuality is itself homophobia is absolute nonsense and a clever conversation-stopper. There are rationally grounded arguments against homosexuality though, unfortunately, most opponents of homosexuality rarely use them.

Caught in the maelstrom

The issue of homosexuality in the West is largely a political issue. It is fought primarily as a culture war.

The philosophical issues, which should really undergird the discussion, get lost in the culture wars and the political agenda-setting. It was that maelstrom in which our prime minister was caught last week in London.

And he met a journalist whose interviewing skills he would not have had much preparation for locally because of our polite and deferential interviewing culture.

The master set-up was not the Hardtalk interviewer's skilful pulling of that 2006 'tune' where Golding vowed that he would never appoint a gay person to his Cabinet.

After the expected dancing around on this one, and an excellent catching up by Golding on the interviewer's non sequitur about equality before the law, the interviewer then pulled for the 'scorcher': "Do you want to live in a Jamaica in the future where homosexuals can be a part of your Cabinet or any Cabinet?"

The PM gave the skilled politician's shuffle, but the equally skilled interviewer stopped him in his tracks.

"With respect," he reminded that his question was not being answered. He then rephrased it, with even greater force.

The prime minister then could not escape with any acceptable political correctness or circumlocution. (It is the mark of the really fine interviewer to ask a question that even an adept and well-coached interviewee cannot dodge).

The PM finally had to say in answer to the question of whether he would like to see a future Jamaica in which it was "natural" for gays to be a part of the Cabinet: "I do not know that that is necessarily the direction in which I want my country to go."

The "not necessarily" was the best that the PM could have said in those circumstances, caught between 'homophobic' Jamaicans at home and in Britain and 'enlightened' Europeans and Americans watching the esteemed BBC.

Use democratic theory

The PM was well aware of the intimidatory tactics and bullyism of the gay community. He was morally right to show that he was not afraid to offend them, for however much one might be sympathetic to their human rights, their willingness to use economic sanctions and political clout to force compliance to their views is obnoxious and undemocratic.

The prime minister could have exploited the democratic thesis - revered in principle if not practice in Europe - to drive home his point.

That is, not appointing homosexuals to the Cabinet is at present a way to honour the democratic ethos, as no such Cabinet would command the respect of and authority to govern the Jamaican masses. While minorities and their rights must be protected under any liberal democracy, as opposed to just an electoral democracy, that majority has a right to a government which represents their deepest values.

Just as there is discrimination, yes, discrimination, in certain liberal democracies - the United States, for example, where a non-American cannot be elected president - so it is not fundamentally undemocratic for the majority to have a Cabinet free of persons whom the majority feel could exercise no moral authority over them.

Remember that, philosophically, gays are on treacherous ground when it comes to ethics. Christians hold to what philosophers call Divine Command Ethics.

That is, they say ethics is determined by a supreme being who determines what is right and wrong. Christians invoke the Bible as their source of ethics.

Secularists have no means of objectively determining morality outside of culture and custom. There is no ethics from above, or 'out there' (say many); nor does any elite have the right to determine for the masses what is right and wrong.

presuppositions

If the mass of the Jamaican people say homosexuality is a moral evil and that their state leaders should not to be homosexuals, by what set of objective, trans-cultural criteria does anyone establish with certitude that they are wrong? Who has the right, as the PM asserted, to impose his values on the Jamaican people?

The prime minister could have adroitly used the philosophical presuppositions of the educated secular elite and the gay lobby to show how those very democratic and secular principles are violated by they themselves. For leaving out gays from the Cabinet does no 'positive harm' to homosexuals while it honours the morality of the prevailing culture. (Practices like female circumcision are different).

Then gay lobby, I am afraid, is manifesting some very ugly and undemocratic features in its over-reaction to its historical repression. Unfortunately, because the lobby has so much economic and political power - and is increasingly exercising intellectual hegemony - it is hard to resist its encroachments.

Intellectual refining

The Christians, I suggest, have a lot of intellectual refining to do. The Christian and anti-homosexual lobby must define the issues which are essential to its struggle in this culture war and abandon those which are not. It is not necessary - and is indeed counterproductive and prejudicial - to deny the civil liberties and humans rights of gay people in the struggle against homosexuality.

There is nothing in the Bible which would approve denying gay people secular employment on the ground of sexual orientation. We would not appoint them to religious posts, the same way we would not appoint people living a flagrantly adulterous life to those positions.

But Christians must stoutly defend the right of gay people to employment, to health services, to all social services - and certainly to their lives! Christians should be the most outspoken activists against anti-homosexual violence.

That we can murder a 62-year-old man, as reported on Wednesday, just because he is suspected to be a homosexual is grotesque and barbaric. That we should barge into the homes of homosexuals in Mandeville and beat them is uncivilised.

Universal human rights

Christians must stand up unequivocally for human rights and must ensure that we have a police force which upholds the rights of homosexuals to security, rather than terrorising gay people.

To believe that homosexuals should be jailed is no more necessary to our opposition to homosexuality than is the jailing of fornicators and adulterers to our opposition to sex outside of marriage.

And be careful of the arguments about 'foreign values'. There are some universal and humanitarian values which we must hold - and to which we are signatories - so let us go easy on that argument.

We are part of an international community and have no cultural immunity to universal human rights.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com. mments may also be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.