From Andy at UK Gay News:
Imagine. Gay Pride in Jamaica. The words of William Urich, the chair of InterPride Committee on International GLBTI Human Rights, on the first public Pride even on the Caribbean island which was staged yesterday.
“Yesterday was an amazing day, here in Montego Bay,” he told UK Gay News. “My eyes well up at the very thought of the day’s outstanding and astounding success.”
Officially, it was the Walk for Tolerance from Howard Cooke Park, along Howard Cooke Boulevard and ending on the beach.The Rev. Nancy Wilson and Rev. Pat Bumgardner (pictured) the Metropolitan Community Church were on-hand for the march. Congratulations for the brave Jamaicans and MCC for creating positive steps for change in this country.
Last year, we helped launch a boycott against the homophobic island nation. Although the boycott is officially over and did not accomplish what we had hoped, it did raise awareness of the plight of LGBT Jamaicans. As for me – I’m personally still boycotting. Although, with more efforts, such as this, maybe I will one day visit this island. I certainly hope so.
I like the attention the walk is getting but I’m having a problem with how it is being portrayed. The international media has this walk as gay pride, and so does the local media. Mind you it was a participant who used those words and it may have well felt like gay pride to him, we can’t dictate how one feels of an event.
I was a participant, I was happy to have been there happy to have been part of history, but I feel it has been twisted by local media to highlight the LGBT group that was there; and if it were that that was at the heart of it all, I would feel cheated and used. This is not to say that I would not have participated, I would just have given myself a very good disguise, after all I live here, can’t fly out like others.
Alexis:
Was it not gay pride? If not, what was it? Please provide a little more information as to the nature of the event so we can learn about it.
Wayne
No it was not a gay pride, though the presence of the flag no doubt added fuel to that fire. The invitation I received stated that the aim of the walk was to call for tolerance and called for an end to the violence and discrimination against such vulnerable groups, persons living with HIV, and sex workers; indeed the vulnerable groups include the LGBT community. The flyers that were given out spoke to creating tolerance and non-discrimination by repealing the buggery law and allowing sex workers to legally work.
Signs calling for tolerance, pamphlets, banners and a rainbow flag were displayed during the walk. Official reports state that approximately one hundred (100) persons took place in the “Walk” (this number was not just homosexuals as some reports seem to suggest)
At the end of the walk, under a tent at Dump-up beach there were short presentations and greetings from the groups that participated. Booths were set up where persons could get more information on HIV/AIDS, get tested and sign up as volunteers (with Red Cross).
The media house that has done the most justice to this event has a report here:
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/westernnews/Jas-march_7523951
This is a late addition but I had written it somewhere else, and think I should add it here:
It was a walk calling for an end to the discrimination a walk for tolerance a walk to acknowledge that there are vulnerable groups unable to access the medical facilities for treatment without fear. This was a walk stating that the rights those basic and those in th constitution should be accessible to ALL JAMAICANS.