classists

In Trinidad, Putting Gays and Lesbians Lower Than Adulterers and Rapists

Many people in Trinidad and Tobago are less vocal about their feelings for murderers, child rapists and drug pushers, than they are about their dislike for gay persons. It makes you feel excluded, like I do not have a right to be. But I do. I am a human being. My sexual preference does not make me less. And how dare my country say that to me! Why don’t the law makers say since we are to be cast aside and unhappy because of our sexuality that they should not take our tax dollars? No they don’t say that, instead they just outlaw us in a savage manner and refuse to discuss anything for decades, as though even dialogue would be too much. … Uninformed persons associate HIV/AIDS mainly with gays, but all our ‘girls-men’ in T&T are just as responsible. We see it everywhere: taxi drivers and school girls; DJs and party girls; powerful men and their young girl toys; straight men are spreading diseases prevalently. It appears that most would prefer a son who was out every night romancing and ruining young girls. Apparently that’s less of a sin, than being in a monogamous relationship with a life partner of the same sex. I am not condemning but it is laughable that no one is as vocal about the breed of straight men we have running around, who over-compensate for their lack of achievements by raping, impregnating and infecting our daughters as if they are cattle.

—An unidentified 24-year-old gay man from St. James, on Trinidad and Tobago’s criminalization of homosexuality [via]

(Pictured: Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Patrick Manning, who dissolved parliament last month ahead of a no-confidence motion against him, and called for new elections two years ahead of schedule, and who refuses to publicly debate his opponent.)

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