Over 20,000 Jamaicans attend church-led rally against LGBTI agenda

The estimated crowd of 25,000 packed Half Way Tree square for close to four hours.

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Monday June 30, 2014, CMC - Over 20,000 people gathered on Sunday afternoon at a mass rally organized by church groups under the umbrella of the newly formed civil society group – Jamaica CAUSE.

The estimated crowd of 25,000 packed Half Way Tree square for close to four hours to take a stance against what has been described as the push by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) community to victimize those who speak out against its agenda.

Jamaica Cause was established following the removal of Professor Brendan Bain as Director of the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Regional Training (CHART) Network.

This came in the wake of his appearance on behalf of a church group in a high profile case involving a gay man in Belize.

Organisers of the rally have described Sunday’s event as a historic and defining moment.

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“The cause was to educate persons and generally advocate a position in favour of the retention of the buggery law and as a push back against the LGBTI agenda, we really want to reorganize society to say that all sexual expression is free and to punish those who say otherwise. I think that Jamaica and Jamaicans are generally going to have to take note of what happened in Half Way Tree,” said Helene Coley Nicholson of the Jamaica CAUSE Secretariat.

“Our emancipation means standing up for strong families, our emancipation means standing against the homosexuality agenda, emancipation for us means standing up against the repealing of the buggery law,” said Alvin Bailey, Chairman of the rally.

Children’s advocate, Betty-Ann Blaine appealed to the crowd to encourage children to return to Sunday School. “Jamaica’s children belong to Jesus”.

“These folks are not interested in people like me … it’s the children they are after. The battle is about your child. Let us declare again that Jamaica belongs to Jesus,” she said.

At the end of the rally, volunteers from CAUSE invited persons to sign a petition against the repealing of the buggery law which will then be sent to Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller.

The majority of those attending the rally arrived in a motorcade which started at the main gate of the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies.

The university has been the target of weeks of protest, sparked by the dismissal of Bain, which has since been put on hold, in keeping with a court injunction. It awaits a court hearing of the case brought by Bain, challenging the decision of the university to dismiss him as Director of CHART.

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Over 20,000 Jamaicans attend church-led rally against LGBTI agenda

Uruguay meeting discussing population and development agenda beyond 2014

REPRESENTATIVES from Jamaica and 29 other countries in the region are now gathered in Montevideo, Uruguay, to discuss a proposed regional agenda beyond 2014 at the first session of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The meeting, which opened yesterday, had among its participants Uruguayan President José Mujica; executive secretary of the Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena; and Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Babatunde Osotimehin.The meeting is being jointly hosted by the Uruguayan Government, ECLAC and the UNFPA.The meeting is being held amidst observations that although recent decades have seen an increase in well-being in the region — with major progress made in areas such as child mortality, life expectancy, gender equality and recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples, people with disabilities and migrants — the region has many challenges remaining in terms of equality.The proposed regional agenda has two main focuses: equality and a human rights approach. It also provides follow-up to the Programme of Action of the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994.Launched by ECLAC and the UNFPA, it identifies the priority themes that should be included in this agenda in the future.“The proposal is based on the review of the ICPD Programme of Action in the region, which showed progress has been made in fulfilling the agreements made in 1994 thanks to policies and measures implemented by national governments (albeit with major differences among them),” ECLAC said yesterday.The document states that the region must focus on seven thematic areas if it is to tackle future population challenges and step up the mainstreaming of such issues in economic and social development policies and programmes.“These areas are the rights and needs of children, adolescents and young people; ageing, social protection and socioeconomic challenges; gender equality; gaps in universal access to sexual and reproductive health services; international migration and protection for the rights of all migrants; territorial inequality, spatial mobility and environmental vulnerability; and the rights of indigenous and Afro-descendent peoples,” ECLAC said in a release yesterday.It also underscores the need for the “region’s specific characteristics” to be “considered as they influence the relationship between population and sustainable development processes.”“These include the region’s major territorial heterogeneity, its cultural complexity and diversity, social, gender and ethnic inequality, weak institutions, rapid progress through demographic transition phases and the relative abundance of natural resources,” ECLACD added.“Inequality must be at the heart of any attempts to tackle all issues involved, as its persistent nature affects population behaviour and demographic trends, which in turn widens gaps in the exercise of rights. This underscores the urgency of equality for growth and growth for equality,” the commission emphasised.

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Uruguay meeting discussing population and development agenda beyond 2014