Last Friday, the Caribbean Court of Justice gave their verdict in the Maurice Tomlinson v Trinidad & Tobago & Belize case, finding that he had not proved his case of discrimination due to immigration regulations in both countries that deny entry to homosexuals.
On Sunday morning the world awoke to news of over 50 people being murdered and another 50 seriously injured in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida–America's largest loss of life in a single mass shooting event.
No relationship between these two events right?
Let's connect the dots shall we, and see how this hate crime against the LGBT community has been "straight washed" and the issue of continued discrimination against us marginalised in order to negate the relationship between endemic and state sponsored homophobia and the murders of 50 people.
Homosexuality is illegal in 74 countries worldwide, and is punishable by death in 11 of those states. This means that well over 300 million human beings around the world are criminalised because of who they love. This represents a country the size of America!
In T&T it is punishable with up to 25 years in jail. The Government says that the law (and the homophobic immigration regulation) is not invoked although when you ask the police force, immigration office or the ministry of legal affairs for figures on this they say they have none!
No records of citizens being tried/convicted for consensual homosexual acts. Are we supposed to accept this then as fact? And if you were tried and convicted of this "abominable crime" would you come forward and admit that you were?
So none of us know for sure.
When asked about hate crimes perpetrated against LGBT people, the former acting assistant commissioner of police told me that they have no such records as they "see all crime as just crime" and do not differentiate if crimes are perpetrated due to some kind of prejudice.
This is the sorry state of affairs not just in the Caribbean, but indeed globally, and the media coverage and political statements on the Orlando massacre reiterate the point.
Until homophobically motivated crimes and other acts of discrimination are properly monitored and information collated, we have absolutely no idea of the level of homophobia there is in our society nor the direct impact on individuals and communities except for an event like Orlando or the nail bombing of the Admiral Duncan gay pub in London which killed three people (two of them straight, one a pregnant woman).
We have seen many beheadings and gay men being thrown off of buildings in the Middle East. We know for certain that corrective rape of lesbians in Southern Africa has reached critical numbers.
In nearly every major capital city, records are showing increased attacks on minority LGBT communities and increased HIV infection rates amongst gay and bisexual men who are being driven back underground due to increased homophobia in communities.
"What increased homophobia?" you may ask?
At the recently held Sizzla concert in Port-of-Spain, the Jamaican dancehall artist repeatedly called for "Fire bun dem batty man" (translation–LGBT people should burn in hell) and other homophobic tirades which were met with loud support from a jeering crowd of three thousand or more Trinis.
LGBT people Burn in hell! This is what the shooter in Orlando hoped for as well, no?
Sizzla claims he does not condone violence against the LGBT community yet he advocates that we burn in hell.
This is a message of hate being repeated in church's, mosques, temples and even our schools!
Since the Orlando massacre, the media have all but ignored the homophobic hatred which motivated this crime and focused instead on radical Islam and gun control. We cannot even be murdered en masse without being marginalised!
Our own Prime Minister sends a message of condolence to the American people and makes no mention of our LGBT community which was most affected by the massacre, nor does he condemn the homophobia that created the monster who felt so affected by two men kissing that he was compelled to kill 50 of us.
Our Prime Minister, his government and our entire parliament continue to deny LGBT fellow Trinbagonian citizens their constitutionally guaranteed human rights and equality as witnessed with the recent case at the CCJ.
I am not a lawyer, but my comprehension of the judgment handed down by the Caribbean Court of Justice last Friday, is of a jumble of conflicting assertions and a very cleverly disguised legal magic trick of "fence sitting."
After almost four years in court. Millions of taxpayers dollars spent to defend a discriminatory law which stops homosexuals entering T&T, with the Governments lawyers' defence being that the law must be retained in order to "prevent terrorism"!
Now that a terrorist atrocity has been perpetrated on the LGBT community, I really am completely and utterly perplexed as I am sure many others are, by both our Government that continues to actively discriminate against its own citizens, and a Caribbean Court of "Justice" that abjectly fails to protect us.
Article 1 of The Universal declaration of human rights created in 1948 to which T&T is a signatory states, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
The homophobic murders in Orlando is a sad and bloody example of our lack of brotherhood, but the inaction and lack of courage shown by the CCJ in not supporting an end to legalised discrimination in the Caribbean is precisely the kind of inaction by our leaders that foster hate crimes such as Orlando.
It is one thing for a Church to promote discrimination, we all recognise that the edicts of each religion are followed in as disciplined a manner or fervour as the follower chooses to imbue, but when the Constitution and the law of the land do so as well, this is what leads to the perfect storm of homophobic hatred as seen in Orlando.
The discriminatory laws of 40 Commonwealth member states, are laws created and exported from Britain and are leftovers of a bygone era of Victorian ignorance and an empire that forced these beliefs down our throats in order to straitjacket our freedoms.
The Empire is gone and so too is the original law that began the hatred. The Mother country decriminalised nearly 50 years ago!
Come on T&T, we've been independent that long, isn't it time we grew up and moved forward instead of holding on to a past that is divisive, incites hatred and is unconstitutionally discriminatory?
Jason Jones,
Trinbagonian Human rights defender