Jamaican Violence Worsening One Year after Ex-Gay Endorsement

Maurice Tomlinson, a Jamaican lawyer with the group AIDS-Free World, is paraphrased by the Washington Blade this week:

There have been nine reported anti-gay murders on the island so far this year. He added there has been a 400 percent increase in the number of reported attacks against LGBT Jamaicans since 2009.

The Blade adds:

The State Department, Amnesty International and other groups have criticized the Jamaican government for not doing enough to curb anti-LGBT violence in the country.

These warnings gained new significance this week after radio station Irie FM reported (via The Washington Blade) that 17-year-old Dwayne Jones “was dancing with a man at a party on July 21 while dressed as a woman when … a group of party-goers stabbed the 17-year-old to death either late on July 21 or early Monday morning before dumping the teen’s body in bushes on the side of a road.”

The violence in Jamaica has only gotten worse in the year since Exodus International board member and ex-gay author Dennis Jernigan was forced to resign from Exodus, after he traveled to Jamaica and fed that country’s antigay mayhem. During that visit, Jernigan criticized President Barack Obama’s concern for human rights, and falsely boasted that homosexuality is caused by Jamaicans’ lousy fathering.

(See video.)

We are still waiting for Jernigan to return to Jamaica and repair the harm done to Jamaica’s sexual minorities and their families.