IN a radical shift of position, the government is now prepared to hear arguments for, and against, the legalisation of homosexuality and prostitution – a move that is likely to ignite new controversy in a country with strong anti-gay sentiments.

Prior to last week, any calls for the Patterson administration to engage in a debate on the issue and for it to repeal the law against buggery had been greeted with a flat “no”.

But last week, the parliamentary committee on Human Resources and Social Development, chaired by junior education minister Donald Rhodd, proposed a debate on the issue as a matter of public health.

The issue was raised in the committee report on its deliberations on HIV/AIDS, as Jamaica moves to strengthen its response to the pandemic and end discrimination and stigma against people living with the disease.

Last night, the recommendation of the Rhodd committee was welcomed by Jamaica’s fledgling gay-rights movement J-FLAG (Jamaica Forum for Lesbians and Gays), which, however, saw it as a first tentative step in the right direction, rather than a major stride.

“It’s not a great, great milestone, but we welcome debate,” said J-FLAG’s programmes manager and co-chair, who called himself ‘Gareth’.

Any change in the laws affecting homosexuality and prostitution would be a victory for Jamaica’s public officials and particularly the top official on the management of HIV/AIDS, Dr Peter Figueroa.

He has consistently urged that legalisation be considered, at least in the case of prostitution, to allow for regulation of commercial sex to minimise its impact on the health system.

Susan Goffe, the chairperson of the local rights group Jamaicans For Justice, declined comment on the suggestion from Rhodd’s committee, having not seen the report – saying only that as of now her organisation had “no position” for or against the legalisation of either prostitution or homosexuality.

However, J-FLAG’s Gareth, said that even with debate, he expected little change in the ‘homophobic’ reaction to gays.

Having repeated a call for the repealing of the buggery laws, he said the next step has to be a policy response from the politicians to devise other laws to penalise those who discriminate, violently or otherwise, against homosexuals.

“Yes, we can always change laws, but the real problem is behaviour change,” he said.

Government spokesman Senator Burchell Whiteman did say last December that the buggery laws were likely to come up for review “in the future”. He, however, at the time stressed that the timetable was dependent on a willingness by Jamaicans to be more accepting of sexual diversity.

That statement was in the context of a Human Rights Watch broadside, in another attack on Jamaica’s reputed homophobia, in a scathing report last year claiming that official policy discriminated against gays, causing them to go underground, exacerbating the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Gays, male homosexuals particularly, were routinely detained and beaten by the police, claimed the Human Rights Watch report titled Hated to Death.

There were also calls by a British junior minister for Jamaica and other Caribbean societies to be more tolerant of homosexuals.

Jamaica has a reputation for homophobia, and last year when J-FLAG’s founder and leader, Brian Williamson, was stabbed to death in his Kingston apartment the human rights group Amnesty International immediately branded his murder a hate crime.

The police said they had no such evidence.

Additionally, Jamaican dancehall DJ artistes have come under international attack for their anti-gay music and some have had to find accommodation with gay rights lobbyists in the face of boycotts and bans of their shows in North America and Europe.

Gareth, the J-FJAG official, said the proposal for national dialogue was worthless if government had been pushed to make the compromise.

“I hope this is not just a debate brought by pressure,” said the J-FLAG co-chair, “and that the debate disappears when the pressure disappears,” he said.

Rhodd’s committee said last week that during its deliberations it was posited that the legalisation of both homosexuality and prostitution could contribute to reducing the number of new cases of HIV infection.

“Whereas some members of your committee strongly objected to this proposal, mainly on the grounds of moral and religious principles, others felt that it was an issue that the leadership and the entire country would need to address as a matter of urgency,” the report said.

It also called on the political leadership to spearhead the formation of a partnership between all sectors of the society to strengthen the dissemination of information about HIV/AIDS, and for increased funding of health and social services in order to facilitate accessibility to these services by every Jamaican in a more holistic and co-ordinated way.

The committee said it looked into the matter of HIV/AIDS because of the far-reaching impact of the disease on all facets of Jamaican society.

It said that the issue was examined in a “comprehensive way” in order to determine the impact of HIV/AIDS on development and to seek to identify measures that could be implemented to effectively address the problem.

Reported by Sunday Observer editor Lavern Clarke and writer Balford Henry