Anti-gay violence defies laid-back image of Jamaica

[flashl]

MANDEVILLE, Jamaica: One night in January, Andre and some friends were finishing dinner when a mob showed up at the front gate. Yelling anti-gay slurs and waving machetes, sticks and knives, 15 to 20 men kicked in the front door of the home he and his friends had rented and set upon them.

"I thought I was dead," Andre, a 20-year-old student, recounted in a faint voice, still scared enough that he was in hiding and did not want his full name to be used.

The mob pummeled him senseless. His right hand, the one he used to shield himself from the blows, is covered with bandages. His skull has deep cut marks and his ear was sliced in half, horizontally. Doctors managed to sew it back together, and he can hear out of it again.

Being gay in Jamaica is not easy. For years, human rights groups have denounced the harassment, beating and even killing of gays here, to little effect. No official statistic has been compiled on the number of attacks. But a recent string of especially violent, high-profile assaults has brought fresh condemnation to an island otherwise known as an easygoing tourist haven.

International Herald Tribune

[WillParkinson]

1. I've got a Jamaican friend from work

And he's the sweetest, kindest person that I've ever met.

Hard to believe that these people are from the same place as he is.

[DeSwiss]

2. This is the reason that I....

long ago crossed them OFF my list of vacation destinations....

[and-justice-for-all]

5. Yeah, we did to...fuck Jamaica. nt

[DeSwiss]

3. Oops, forgot to K&R!!!

[closeupready]

4. Will never step foot there, not in this lifetime.

I also have acquaintances who come from there originally, and they are indeed wonderful, and coincidentally, quite gay-friendly. So I don't really understand what drives the island's deep homophobia.

[Creideiki]

6. Heat and humidity?

:shrug: