The Response to a Lesbian Club in Jamaica

Portmore residents have lashed out against a lesbian club said to operating in the municipality and are adamant that they do not want any such club or activity in their community.
Recently, in a local Sunday newspaper, a man placed an advertisement for girls between 18 and 30 years old to form a lesbian club named ‘Circle Square’ in Portmore. However, this did not gone down well with the residents of the municipality.

“Not under God’s earth! God don’t want that at all … It’s abominable in God’s sight. I’m pleading to them don’t let that come off the ground,” the Reverend Elisha Thomas, a pastor in Portmore, said. “They must remember that it was homosexuality that brought the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Gay Jamaican Police Officer Speaks Out

Taken from GBMNews; Written By Michelle Bromley-McChie

This interview of Constable Michael Hayden sheds light on the plight of a gay officer in the world most homophobic country… Jamaica. Hayden risked his career and life when he come out while on the force. Listen to his stunning statements about the abuse he faced from his fellow officers and supervisors.

Gay Jamaican Immigrant Gains Reprieve

According to a post on seattletimes.

A gay Jamaican man — one of the longest-held detainees at the Northwest Detention Center — has won a second chance to remain in the United States after a federal appeals court in a ruling this week pointed to a “pattern and practice of persecution” of gays in his Caribbean homeland.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered an immigration judge to reconsider the case of Damion Bromfield, who is seeking something akin to political asylum 15 years after he first came to the U.S. as a legal immigrant — and more than a decade after he came out as gay.

The 30-year-old, who grew up in the Portland area, says he’s convinced he would be beaten and killed if ordered back to Jamaica.

The ruling could have implications for other gays caught up in the U.S. immigration system.

“This ruling sets an important precedent for individuals who fear they will be persecuted because of their sexual identity in their home countries,” said Matt Adams, legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, which represented Bromfield before the federal appeals court.

“The court has said it’s not just this case, that right now in Jamaica there is this pattern and practice of persecution of gays.”

Jamaican Lesbian Spared Deportation Due to Risk

In an extremely rare move, a Jamaican lesbian living in Sunrise has avoided deportation — for now — after an immigration judge allowed the 29-year-old to stay in the United States because her sexual orientation could cause her to be tortured in her home country.

”The general atmosphere in Jamaica is a feeling of no tolerance towards homosexuals in general, and as such, . . . the respondent’s life is definitely at risk,” Immigration Judge Irma Lopez-Defillo said, according to court documents.

Lopez-Defillo initially ordered that the woman be deported because of a pair of drug convictions. In the same ruling, the judge deferred the order based on the climate of intolerance in Jamaica. Nichole checked in with immigration authorities on Thursday regarding her order of supervision. She is due to report back in three months.

You can get more on this story at miamiherald.com.

Jamaica Gets Lashing from AIDS Conference

Jamaica came in for a lashing as “a homophobic society that discriminated against homosexuals”, at the International AIDS Conference underway in this Mexican capital.

Executive director of the little known Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVCC), Robert Carr, used a PowerPoint presentation to graphically paint a picture of Jamaica as a country where cops attack and chase away homosexuals who go to police stations to report crimes against them.

Pointing to a picture of a recent mobbing of gay men at a plaza in Half-Way-Tree, St Andrew, Carr showed the police holding weapons, and a media videographer filming the event.

“In a context where people denied homophobic violence, the police show up armed and the media show up to take pictures,” he declared.

Read more at jamaicaobserver.com.

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