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.”
In the wake of Donald Trump's win in the 2024 election, some voters have been receiving offensive text messages.
The FBI said in a statement that it is aware of a flood of texts aimed at LGBTQ people being told to report to a "re-education camp," an apparent reference to conversion therapy.
Diana Brier, a 41-year-old lesbian, told The New York Times that she received one of the texts referring to an executive order and instructing her to check in to be transported to an undisclosed location for an "LGB re-education camp." The message also mentioned Trump and the date of his inauguration.
A Michigan state representative suggested on Monday that the government make same-sex marriage against the law.
State Rep. Josh Schriver (R-Oxford) took to X, writing, "Make gay marriage illegal again. This is not remotely controversial, nor extreme."
Make gay marriage illegal again.
This is not remotely controversial, nor extreme.
— Rep. Josh Schriver (@JoshuaSchriver) December 2, 2024
Michigan Republicans, buoyed by Donald Trump's electoral victory in their state, won back control of the State House of Representatives and will take power in January.
A dozen Moscow clubgoers have been found guilty of "petty hooliganism" and detained following recent raids of nightclubs by Russian security forces.
The nightclub patrons were arrested on Saturday, Nov. 30, and in the early morning hours of Sunday, Dec. 1, at three separate venues -- Arma, Inferno, and Mono -- as part of an effort to "combat LGBT propaganda," according to a statement government officials gave to TASS, the Russian state-run news agency.
Videos and images of the raids were shared on social media. Videos from Arma showed patrons sitting on the dance floor while riot police walked around shouting orders, reported The Moscow Times.
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