A government minister in Barbados believes straight people are being “harassed” in the fight for LGBTQ equality.
According to Caribbean Life, Steve Blackett, Minister of Social Care and Community Development, told “external forces and internal forces” that marriage equality would never happen in Barbados.
He also said that calls for equality had left straight people feeling “marginalized” and “harassed.”
“This LGBT lobby is so insistent, so persistent, claiming this community is being marginalized and stigmatized,” he said. “They have been so insistent and persistent that I, as a straight person, you as a straight person, we’re beginning to feel marginalized, harassed and stigmatized by them.”
Despite having some of the strictest anti-sodomy laws in the world, Blackett said that Barbados is tolerant of the LGBTQ community.
“If you want to be same-sex, that’s your business… nothing wrong with that at all. Barbados has always been tolerant to homosexuals among us,” Blackett said. “They are our relatives, our family or friends, our kith and kin, our hairdressers, our tailors…Same-sex relationships in most neighborhoods are nothing new.”
However, Blackett went on to contradict himself, saying that he considers transplanting the “foreign culture” of same-sex marriage into Barbados a degradation of the country’s values.
“That is what I have a problem with. We must also watch this creeping attempt to offend and insult our moral sensitivities here in Barbados,” he said.
A Human Rights Watch report this month found that LGBTQ people on seven Caribbean Islands, including Barbados, are “targets for discrimination, violence and abuse.” The report went on to say that the countries need to repeal their “colonial-era laws.”
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito hinted in recent remarks that the court is unlikely to overturn its 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide -- even though he personally disagrees with it.
Part of the court’s six-member conservative majority, Alito made the remarks on October 3 during an academic conference hosted by the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
In his speech, Alito referenced the Obergefell marriage equality decision while praising what he called the "bright future" of constitutional originalism -- the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted as the founders intended when they wrote it in 1787.
One Million Moms, the project of the anti-LGBTQ American Family Association known for railing against depictions of queer people, has a new target: NASCAR.
The group has launched a petition urging the racing organization to cancel an upcoming advertising campaign for the 2026 season, expected to air in February around the time of the Daytona 500, over its use of the slogan "Hell Yeah!"
Created by the Los Angeles agency 72andSunny, the ad aims to reintroduce fans to NASCAR’s brand and appeal to blue-collar audiences by emphasizing its "rebellious, Americana roots" while "satisfying its core fan base and reaching new audiences," according to Adweek.
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