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Summary: TIME magazine had previously described Jamaica as the most homophobic country.
[6 January 2012] - For even the hard-nosed observer of Caribbean affairs, Jamaica's newly elected Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has been saying some pretty stunning things recently. Among them, the leader of the People's National Party said the unthinkable a week before Jamaica went to the polls. At a nationally televised leadership debate, Simpson Miller gave full-throated support to gay rights. No one should suffer discrimination based on their sexual orientation, she declared. In so doing, this veteran politician set up a clear contrast with former prime minister from the opposition party, Bruce Golding, who had infamously stated on the BBC's Hard Talk, that he would never have any gay or lesbian minister in his cabinet. Simpson-Miller, however, who was Prime Minister in 2006 and 2007, said she would choose cabinet members because of “their ability to manage and to lead”, not their sexuality. Going even further, she promised a conscience vote on whether Jamaica's laws criminalising consensual male homosexual acts – "buggery laws" – should be repealed. Given Jamaica's reputation as the most homophobic place in the world, Simpson Miller's comments on homosexuality could have been political suicide. But her party won a blinding victory, and she has been returned to serve as prime minister for a second time. Simpson Miller, by her confident announcements on gay rights, is bringing together an idea that has always seemed to exist only in conflict. She has signalled an understanding of matters related to sexual orientation that are in keeping with existing international human rights law. Her courageous assertion on gay rights, at a time that it might have been politically costly to do so, is a clear and hopeful indication that Jamaica can do the right thing. [Sources: The Guardian and Pink News] Further Information: