Last week, a whole bag a people gathered in Half-Way Tree protesting against the 'gay agenda'. Hooray!

A number of church groups under the umbrella of Jamaica Cause had organised the rally to drive home the point that they felt their fundamental rights and freedoms were being increasingly threatened by this gay agenda. This was the latest manifestation emerging from the firing of Professor Brendan Bain as director of the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Regional Training Network (CHART).

Among the themes being preached last week was that Jamaicans are against the gay agenda because Jamaica is a righteous country. I saw pictures of people with tears in their eyes, overwrought with emotion at the thought that their very way of life was under threat from these evil monsters.

conflicting reasons

Even though I agree that Professor Bain should not have been fired, all of this is kind of conflicting to me for several reasons. Here we have the church and their followers protesting that their fundamental rights and freedoms were being threatened. I honestly don't see how but has any one considered that the gay community basically has NO rights or freedoms? They are the ones who are being ostracised. They are the ones who are mobbed, beaten, and generally marginalised so they are really the ones being threatened.

The last time I wrote a column suggesting we leave the gays alone and allow them to live their lives just as we heterosexuals do, I received a bunch of hate mails from people, some of whom threatened my family and I just because I think that we are creating mass hysteria based on age-old myths. Aren't Christians supposed to be preaching about loving thy neighbour as thyself? Basically what I was being forced to accept is that these bible-thumping Christians should have all the say and nobody dares challenge them. What about my fundamental rights and freedoms to express myself? Anybody see the paradox here?

The other thing I heard on Sunday was about how righteous Jamaica is. I had to laugh.

Earlier this year, the Jamaica Observer reported that there was a 40 per cent increase in the number of sexual abuse against children. Months old boys and girls were being sexually molested by men and women who should be tasked with the responsibility of protecting them, were the ones harming them, scarring them for live. This is a righteous country indeed.

Jamaican police are overwhelmed by thousands of shooting incidents, robberies, rapes and more than a thousand murders a year for the past 15 or so years. Oh, we are so very righteous. Jamaica struggles to move from its position on the most corrupt country in the world. Wow, such righteous.

Close to half the country's population is living below the poverty line, many in sub-human conditions. Meanwhile, we have youngsters conning old people in the United States out of their pensions, leaving them destitute while they are living high off their ill-gotten gains. Thousands of kids are living on the streets not knowing where their next meal is coming from or where they will sleep on any given night. With all these evil things happening every day, things that we conveniently turn a collective blind eye on, we still lay claim to being a righteous country.

Righteous people don't sit idly by and allow these things to happen in their country. Righteous people reach out to help their fellow men, not chase, stone, maim and kill them. Righteous people recognise that everyone have a right to live their lives without interference.

The greatest irony about all this for me is that the very thing the church is accusing the gay community of is the very thing they are guilty of. You know what I call that? Hypocrisy!

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