There are certain issues for which there are no ready-made answers to the questions they raise and which, in fact, frequently raise more questions than answers.

The matter of homosexuality is one such. And while the issue has always remained just beneath the surface, emerging from time to time, on the national agenda, there seems now to be a new twist.

We note the angry visit of gays to the offices of the Western Mirror newspaper in Montego Bay on Monday; the recent attack on gays reportedly flaunting their homosexuality on a carnival stage, again in the north coast resort city, and the attack upon gays at a funeral in Mandeville because of their alleged cross-dressing.

What each incident - all of which were reported in the Observer - had in common, was the suggestion that Jamaican gays are increasingly 'coming out' of the proverbial closet and are seemingly more willing to risk the ire of the homophobic populace.

We don't profess to have the answer to this complex issue of homosexuality and we are aware that it is hardly likely that persons on the different sides of the issue will ever see eye-to-eye. Yet, there are few subjects which are crying out more for dispassionate consideration.

A huge segment of the human population approaches the issue from the point of view of religion, which clearly states that homosexuality is a sin. That is enough for them. Jamaican legislation further cements the anti-gay feeling by outlawing homosexuality under the term 'buggery'.
The homosexual lobby, led by gays in the United States, argue that gays are born that way and therefore have the right to live as such without hindrance, much the same as heterosexuals.

Bio-ethicists suggest that instead of approaching the debate from a position of right or wrong, debaters should look at the more fundamental issue of what makes us male or female.
They invite us to ask ourselves whether it is our chromosomes, the genital organs, the sexual hormones that flow through us, or how we are brought up to look at ourselves that determines our sexual orientation.

There is also strong medical evidence showing that one in 500 infants are born with ambiguous sexual organs, meaning they have both male and female sexual organs, and that it is only at maturity, around age 12 or so, when the secondary sexual characteristics kick in that one can say whether it is a boy or girl.

Everybody, they argue, has testosterone (male hormone) and oestrogen (female hormone), and it is an excess of one or the other that causes the development of predominant sexual characteristics. The question is, what happens if they are both equal?

Further, they say that humans, at birth, are predisposed to either male or female manner, but that is then subjected to environmental, family and social forces. It is how each individual is impacted by all these forces that they will translate to how they develop as adults. They then suggest that if we were to look at all of these inputs, it would not be as easy to come to a conclusion on homosexuality.

However, until the debate reaches this level, homosexuals need to be wise and practical. There is grave danger in flaunting homosexual behaviour in public. After all, of what good is it that one should be right, but dead right?

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'

Cheeky's World