LGBTI network welcomed into Commonwealth
(CNS): The Commonwealth Equality Network (TCEN) has become the first lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and/or intersex (LGBTI) organisation to be officially accredited by the Commonwealth. The NGO will now benefit from increased access to, participation in and information about Commonwealth matters and the accreditation sends a strong signal about the legitimate role LGBTI activists have in societies. TCEN is network of civil society organisations from 39 Commonwealth countries working to challenge inequality and end discrimination against LGBTI people.
Many of the TCEN organisations are based in countries, including here in the Caribbean, where LGBTI people face inequities and injustice. Thirty-six countries in the Commonwealth continue to criminalise consensual same-sex acts and in many others, LGBTI people experience discrimination and violence.
TCEN chairperson Rosanna Flamer-Caldera said, “Considering the process it takes, it is a small wonder and a great victory for TCEN to have been given accreditation.”
She added, “I look forward to the day when all countries within the Commonwealth adhere to the principles of human rights and equality enshrined in the Commonwealth Charter, safeguarding LGBTI rights and upholding freedom and equality for all.”
Caleb Orozco, Executive Director of the United Belize Advocacy Movement (UNIBAM), whose successful lawsuit resulted in Belize’s anti-homosexuality being law struck down in 2016, said, “Finally, Commonwealth governments have acknowledged that their LGBTI citizens’ dignity and rights are a part of democratic principles that should be at the policy table. As a citizen of the Commonwealth, it gives me hope that states will not leave totally the defence of rights to be the burden, alone, of individuals.”
In 2015, a group of TCEN members participated in the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta, where a Barbadian activist became the first person to address Commonwealth foreign ministers on the lived reality of its LGBTI citizens.
TCEN said it will harness the momentum accreditation gives to continue the struggle for the dignity, equality and basic freedoms of all LGBTI people throughout the Commonwealth, particularly during next year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit hosted by the UK in April 2018.
Category: Caribbean, Local News, UK, World News
Will Savannah now secede?
I’ve heard some of the more progressive residents want to join the 17th century. But the plans are delayed as they have to be translated into cave paintings.
I sincerely hope not!!
I agree that what one does in ones bedroom is no one else’s business however these issues are now very public and I for one am tired of the Cayman Islands being asked to accept a way of life which contradicts the values and legislations the country has held fast to for hundreds of years.
So much talk about human rights – well I reserve the right to believe in God the creator and the right to continue to live in a society whose values have always revolved around God and His word. A society whose God fearing traditions have been passed down from generation to generation and will continue to be upheld for generations to come. The right to continue to live in a society where a marriage has always been considered to be between one man and one woman.
Unfortunately I am sure this comment will offend some but I will not apologize for my opinions – they are after all my right to have.
Tired of hearing about it.
I’m tired of blatant discrimination.
I’m just tired.
Like honestly why is this being shoved down people throats??… we do not care, why do you people need acceptance of us “straights”??… it would not be such a problem to others if you stopped waving what you do in private in their faces…
Being queer is no crime people!
Since Gay is the new black where is the their Moses, Martin Luther King, Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley, Malcom X, Nelson Mandela, Fredrick Douglas, and Paul Boyle (just to name a few)?……Men of strength,iron,courage and endurance. ????????. I have yet to see or hear about one…
Harvey Milk, Alan Turing, Alexander the Great, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Tchaikovsky, Forster…does that help?
Oscar Wilde, Ellen, Ian McKellen, Irish Prime minister Leo Veradker, RuPaul, St Paul… wait what are we listing here? Are you trying to say that blacks only deserved civil rights because there were 8 (to name but a few) blacks that you deem to be worthwhile people?? What is wrong with you???
You forgot Dr. Frank.
To Anonymous who thinks that being gay is a “mental issue” (a phrase that needs explanation): Obviously, you are either ignorant about the prejudices, tortures, murders, societal deprivations, etc., that gay people have suffered and continue to suffer, or you choose not to know. Before you make such baseless opinions and unfounded statements, maybe you should do some research.
Yes, there is a difference between being gay qnd being black. But, none of the problems involved should be diminished in favour of the other just because of a catchy phrase you don’t happen to like.
All lives are important. Freedom and equali human rights are what we should be focused on.
Liberalism is a very very seeious mental disorder that is unfortunately contagious.
God, I hope so. It seems to ve the antidote to ignorance!
7.11, surprised you could spell Liberalism. But that is about as far as you got.
“The men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the LORD” (Genesis 13:13). The people of Sodom had ‘gay rights’. Homosexuality was unrestrained in Sodom (Genesis 19:4,5). They declared their sin, they did not hide it (Isaiah 3:9).
Before God destroyed Sodom, the Dead Sea region was a fertile plain (Genesis 13:10). Because their sin was very grave (Genesis 18:20) the Lord rained sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding plain, destroying the cities, the inhabitants and all vegetation (Genesis 19:24,25).
It became a land of sulfur, salt and burning. “It is not sown, nor does it bear, nor does any grass grow there” (Deuteronomy 29:23). It was “overrun with weeds and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation” (Zephaniah 2:9). Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them “having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 7).
God explained why He destroyed Sodom: “Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit” (Ezekiel 16:49,50).
Yeh, and then love your fellow man, love your enemy, don’t lie or cheat…and you all go to man created Churches and lie about everything every Sunday….great teachers.
Father Dougal McGuire: That’s nearly as mad as that thing you told me about the loaves and the fishes
No Dougal, that wasn’t mad. That’s when our Lord got a few bits of food together and made lots of food, and everyone had dinner
Whilst I agree that the particular slogan is extremely annoying, being gay is not a mental issue. It is a natural state of being – just like being black is.
Is being White also “a natural state of being”?
If so, why we do / have we see / seen such a significant difference in the experiences and treatment of Blacks compared to Whites?
Furthermore, why then isn’t the catchphrase “Gay is the new White?”
If you need this explaining to you you’re too stupid to understand the answer.
You would not take the time and effort to reply to someone you genuinely believe to be stupid.
Therefore, kindly do explain it to me.
Thanks.
I’m pretty sure the obvious reason that sticks out like a sore thumb is the discrimination, segregation and, not to to forget slavery of black people which is a real comparison to what is happening in todays politics surrounding lifestyle choices made by consenting rational thinking adult, minus the slavery of course.
Who did that to Blacks, and why?
Did the (TBD) perpetrators not believe Blacks were equal to them as human beings?
Have these people completely reversed their thinking in this regard? If so, what brought about such a momentous shift in ideology?
Furthermore, anyone that believes there is ANY comparison between what Blacks have endured and the issues facing gays today is nothing short of a disgrace to humanity.
(Have you ever seen a “Gay is the new Jew” placard? No you haven’t, and even if we did it would NEVER gain similar traction.)
Basically, the struggles of Blacks are being referenced under the LGBT umbrella as a societal marker which by doing so ironically compounds the the reality that Blacks are still undermined.
I suggest each movement refrain from burden-borrowing and fight their respective fights with their own arsenal.
White or black is more under color terminology but, your gender, expression of yourself if you will is a social contruct of your experiences while sex determines if your’re male or female.
Homosexuality is an expression of love and attraction just as heterosexuality is.
Umm, ok.
I am black and everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I hate it when they term gay to be the new black B’s!! Were gays shipped on separate slave ships, did they had “gays only” wanter fountains etc. Being gay is a “mental” issue, being black is a “racial” issue, there is a difference.
…a racial issue created and prolonged by Whites and other races.
Then again, it makes perfect sense when one understands recessive and dominant in terms of genetics.
I would probably be against Blacks myself if I wasnt Black myself.
They could erase my group by way of basic DNA rather than armies and artillery.
🙂
All nationalities have been slaves and have owned slaves.
Here we call them “Helpers”.
Or servers, bellmen, waitresses, scuba instructors, boat skippers, water sports administrators, “events models”, etc.
All very nicely tanned though. Some very pleasant on the eyes.
“Or servers, bellmen, waitresses, scuba instructors, boat skippers, water sports administrators, “events models”, etc.”
Their life decisions created their role. Not race.
What “life decisions” were responsible for the legacy of slavery (add to that; segregation, lynchings, human BBQ pic-a-nig’s, rape, Jim Crow) and the ensuing “greatness” of the Anglo-European responsible therefore?
I just want to know what life decisions to avoid less I end up on the wrong side of another centuries-long stint of brutal enslavement – at the hands of supposed fellow human beings.
Homosexuality is as much a mental issue as being heterosexual is.
People think being attractive to the opposite sex is out of the ordinary but, forget it is a normal part of nature and many mammals indulge in same sex behavior.
The part where two human adults who consent to this type of attraction is in the eyes of nature perfectly normal.
So if mammals eat their own kind, eat their own crap, attempt to have sex with the same sex, we should follow?
Hello. Im not like the rest of the animals! :/
Mammals reproduce, experience fear,pleasure and compassion so, no with a comment like that it seems you’re not like the rest of the animals.
Animals are just that, ANIMALS! Uncivilized mammals! For you to justify homosexuality with animals an nature, speaks magnitudes of your ignorance. For clarification, I am not against people being GAY if they choose to be, everyone makes their own decisions. I could care less. I am against people trying to justify the change of the law based on the actions off animals in nature.
You think you’re special but in reality no more significant than a chimpanzee, after all you’re only missing one less chromozone than your “uncivilized” cousins.
The times they are changing.
Love is all that is needed to justify it and not silly analogies for the weak minded.
You, Sir, are an animal. It’s not up for debate. That, Sir is a fact.
Whether you are judged to be a fair and insightful animal remains to be seen.
LGBT are not looking for anything more than the same rights that you currently enjoy; the same rights guaranteed all of us.
People and other animals do not choose to be gay. God and/or nature causes it to be so. I challenge you to consider the moment in which you “chose” to be straight. You cannot, because you didn’t consider both options. You just knew.
Just like everyone else.
You animal.