A United Nations (UN) recommendation that Jamaica’s legislators approve a reclassification of sexual intercourse to add oral and anal penetration in order to fairly protect men and women against sexual violence has re-ignited the wrath of a church lobby group.
The religious lobby, through the Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society (JCHS) and the Associated Gospel Assembles (AGA), will have none of it and have strongly warned the island’s lawmakers to flatly reject the proposal.
On Wednesday, representative of the UN Country Team, Mark Connolly, offered the recommendation to a parliamentary committee that is reviewing Jamaica’s sexual offenses statutes.
Under the island’s Sexual Offences Legislation sexual intercourse is “penetration of the vagina of one person by the penis of another person”.
But Connolly contended that the definition is too narrow and that the legal recognition of sexual violence against men and boys would not fall under it in an equally protective way as against women and girls.
“If sexual intercourse does not consider the possibility of other penetrative practices that may be used for inflicting grave sexual violence to any person, it does not recognise the same nature of any sexual penetration and diminishes particular humiliating or painful traumatic experiences that victims may go through,” he said.
However, head of the JCHS Wayne West, countered the proposal and argued that it disregards the ‘biology of sex’ and promotes the ‘gay agenda’.
“The UN is working an ideological framework that is seeking to remove consideration of the reality of biology in order to advance its political agenda. You don’t have to redefine sex from its biological moorings in order to punish people who offend other individuals,” he said.
Other churchmen have argued that legalizing anal sex would be the first step to legalizing same sex marriage in Jamaica.
Gay lobby group, the Jamaica Forum for All-Sexuals Gays and Lesbians (JFLAG) have come out in support of the UN recommendation.
