2 Men on Gay Cruise Arrested For "Buggery" In Dominica

Two men who were on an Atlantic gay cruise through the Caribbean were arrested while the ship was docked on the island of Dominica because they could be seen having sex from shore and were charged with the crime of "buggery." Dominica is one of the many island-nations in the Eastern Caribbean (usually known as the West Indies) where sodomy is still illegal and open homosexuality is a cultural taboo.

According to TowleRoad, the two men have plead guilty to indecent exposure and will be released after they pay a fine:

Two gay men from Eastern Shore Lane in Southern California, Dennis Jay Mayer and John Robert Hart who pleaded guilty to the charge of “Indecent Exposure” were scheduled to live the island on Thursday, after paying a fine of EC$2,400.00 [roughly US$900] each.The court heard that the men were seen on the balcony of the cruise ship, Celebrity X Cruises, naked fondling each other.Hart, a retired police officer and Mayer a personal assistant real estate agent told the court, ”We are sorry for what happened, we regret the incident and humbly apologize to the people of Dominica.”

As regular readers of this blog may know, Mad Professah was born on the island of Grenada, and spent 8 years on the island of Barbados going to the equivalent of middle school and high school.

It's not clear to me that a straight couple would have been arrested if a woman and man were seen "naked fondling each other." Cruise ships with all-gay clientele have  been controversial in the Caribbean for years, with local activists often expressing displeasure and exhibiting homophobic attitudes in Grenada and the Bahamas.

It's said that gay cruises specifically avoid the islands of Barbados and Jamaica because of local attitudes, while on the other hand the Virgin Islands are very welcoming to all-gay cruises.

India Gov't Accepts Sodomy Legalization Ruling

The long strange story of India's sodomy law appears to be coming to a close with the demise of the colonial-era prohibition on gay male sexual acts appearing to be nigh. Today the Government of India clarified that it supports the previous decision by the Delhi High Court to decriminalize sodomy, despite a declaration before the Supreme Court last week that the Government felt that gay sex is "highly immoral" which was quickly officially denied.

The Associated Press has the story:

NEW DELHI (AP) — The Indian government Tuesday clarified to the Supreme Court that it accepts a recent ruling legalizing gay sex in the country.

A lawyer told the Supreme Court that the government would not challenge a 2009 order by the Delhi High Court striking down a colonial-era law that made gay sex a crime.

The order was appealed by conservative groups and the Supreme Court is now hearing opinions from those groups as well as gay rights activists.

The latest statement comes days after another government lawyer told the court that gay sex was "highly immoral" and should be banned. The government quickly denied that lawyer's statement, prompting confusion about its stance on the law.

On Tuesday, a Supreme Court justice asked the government's lawyers to file an affidavit to reconcile the two divergent positions heard in court. Neither lawyer explained Thursday's confusion.

The 2009 high court order had said that treating consensual gay sex between adults as a crime was a violation of fundamental rights protected by India's constitution.

If this decision gets confirmed it will be the single most significant advance in LGBT rights that will positively impact the most number of homosexuals in the world. India has a population which is estimated at 1.2 billion people.

Santorum Would Annul All U.S. Same-Sex Marriages

Rick Santorum, the ex-Senator from Pennsylvania who is one of the biggest religious-based homophobes now running for President (although that is a hotly contested title!) made news over the weekend for two reasons: he has surprisingly surged into the Top 3 in polls for tomorrow's Iowa caucuses and he said that he thinks that all same-sex marriages in the United States should be invalid.

I don't really care about the first item (I am confident that President Obama will be re-elected for a second term in November) but the second item needs further attention.

Here is what Santorum said exactly (to MSNBC's Chuck Todd):

SANTORUM: I think marriage has to be one thing for everybody. We can’t have 50 different marriage laws in this country, you have to have one marriage law…

TODD: What would you do with same-sex couples who got married? Would you make them get divorced?

SANTORUM: Well, their marriage would be invalid. I think if the constitution says “marriage is this,” then people whose marriage is not consistent with the constitution… I’d love to think there’s another way of doing it.

This statement demonstrates an astonishing ignorance and misunderstanding of federal law and marriage law, especially for a former United States Senator. Then, again, there's a reason why Santorum has been declared (by a fellow Republican who served as Senator John McCain's top aide for decade) as the dumbest United States Senator of the last twenty years:

Ron Paul may be the wackiest candidate in the GOP field. But for pure, blind stupidity nobody beats Santorum. In my 20 years in the Senate, I never met a dumber member, which he reminded me of today.

There are many reasons why Santorum's statement is so stupid but I will just list a few here

1. There is no precedent for invalidating any legal contract which was legal when it was entered into (i.e. even when Proposition 8 passed preventing any future marriages all the previous marriages entered into before its enactment are still legal and recognized in California).
2. The regulation of marriage IS a state issue and has been that way for centuries in this country; it is precisely that history (as well as the clearly defined animus against homosexuality that the law represents) which makes the so-called Defense of Marriage Act so constitutionally dubious, and this legal point will probably be settled within the current calendar year when the 9th and 1st U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal finally issue rulings on the matter.
3. The only way to "have one marriage law" would be to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution and there is absolutely no way that there are 2/3rds majorities in both houses to destroy the marriage rights of fellow U.S. citizens in the 6 states (and District of Columbia) where it is now legal.

This is really about Rick Santorum trying to burnish his heterosexual supremacist credentials with Iowa Republican caucus-goers. There is no way that he would ever be in the position to be able to enact his theocratic version of law into reality.

PNP Wins Jamaican Election In Landslide

This is good news! The People's National Party (PNP) has won a landslide election victory in Jamaica, defeating the ruling Jamaica Labor Party 41 seats to 22 in the 64-seat House of Repreentatives.

This is good news fpr the LGBT community because the waning days of the election campaign were fueled by heated discussions over Jamaica's "anti-buggery" (anti-sodomy) law, which PNP Leader and now Prime Minister-elect Portia Simpson Miller said she did not support.

Looks like the new government of Jamaica will be less accommodating of homophobia than any in recent history.
It also rumored that at least one member of the LGBT community was elected.