What is wrong with being different?
published: Saturday | February 21, 2004
THE EDITOR, Sir:
I AM ashamed for the harm that has come to the eleventh grader of Dunoon Park Technical High School in East Kingston. We have neglected him as we allowed ourselves to be carried away in believing that he is a second class citizen of Jamaica. You and I have abandoned this child by allowing the government to turn a deaf ear and look away as our brothers and sisters who are homosexual are battered.
The battle for the full inclusion of homosexual persons in the social order is the result of a new consciousness attacking an old and inadequate definition. Homosexual people were once defined, with biblical undergirding, as sinful people. It was assumed by this negative definition that such people either chose to be homosexual, as an act of moral depravity, or that they were mentally ill and could not help themselves. Because of our ignorance and prejudice, we continue to participate in the oppression of countless numbers of people whose only 'sin' is that they were born with a sexual orientation different from the majority. Hence we are agreeing that only the majority have rights in this country.
Let us question what we have accepted as truth and stop bashing our people because of our differences. 'Out of Many One People'.
