PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — More than 1,000 people in Haiti participated Friday in a rare street demonstration to protest homosexuality and a proposal to legalize gay marriage in the Caribbean nation.
The protest brought together religious groups, from Protestant to Muslim, who carried antigay placards and chanted songs, including one in which they threatened to burn down parliament if its members make same-sex marriage legal.
A Haitian gay rights group has said it plans to submit a plan allowing gays to wed.
‘‘I believe in God, and God condemns homosexuality,’’ said protester Eddy Jean-Pierre, a self-described Protestant. ‘‘Haiti is not going to accept this, and God will punish us further if we allow this law to pass.’’
The rally organized by several religious groups, including one called the Haitian Coalition of Religious and Moral Organizations, came two days after watchdog groups held a news conference to condemn what they say is a rise in threats against homosexuals.
Haiti’s gay and lesbian community is small and has long kept a low-profile because of a strong social stigma that sparks fears of physical violence and loss of employment.
Rights groups in Haiti say that members of the country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community do not report rights violations to authorities out of fear of reprisal. Those people also have suffered overt discrimination from law enforcement and judicial authorities, particularly in Port-au-Prince, the US State Department said in a 2012 report on human rights in Haiti.
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Speaking of sex crimes:
"College, others to pay in sex case; $12m for boys abused in Haiti" Associated Press, July 02, 2013
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Fairfield University and others that supported a charity designed to help feed and educate boys in Haiti have reached a $12 million settlement with children who were sexually abused by a founder of the group....
Douglas Perlitz was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison in 2011 for the assaults after acknowledging he engaged in illicit sexual conduct with boys who attended the Project Pierre Toussaint School in Cap-Haitien....
Perlitz founded the Haiti school in 1997 when he lived in Fairfield County, Conn. Authorities said he began abusing the children, some as young as 11, in 1998 before the school was built.
Prosecutors said Perlitz abused at least 16 children, then gave them money, food, clothing, and electronics and threatened to take everything away and expel them from the program if they told anyone.
The abuse scandal led to the collapse of the school and its fund-raising arm, the Haiti Fund, forcing the children back onto the streets, prosecutors have said.
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You may not want to hold your breath waiting on the next Globe article about Haiti.
Related: N.Y. pushes for US to recognize gay marriages
Going to use the muscle of the "power of the state’s $160 billion pension system" to do it.
Just don't piss off Wall Street, kay?
I'm so GLAAD I've stopped covering the gay issue.
