Dear Editor,
I write in response to the commentary regarding a social media post made by Attorney General Marlene Malahoo Forte denouncing the decision of the United States Embassy in Kingston to fly a rainbow flag in solidarity with the victims of the Orlando gay nightclub shooting.
Before the public turns on the attorney general, it should first approach the US Embassy. Some may argue that the half-mast rainbow flag is justified because the Orlando gay nightclub tragedy is the worst shooting massacre in American history. But American history is replete with stories like these. Why, therefore, should an additional rainbow flag be flown at half-mast alongside the American flag? Could it be a reflection of additional significance being attached to the lives lost?
A flag is a political and diplomatic symbol, and the privilege of its possession belongs to a country or group of countries. How can a demographic group within a country be given the diplomatic clout of a country? Are “rainbow” lives (and their loss) now conflated with US policy? I believe the honourable attorney general is more perceptive than her critics. She sees how the LGBT lobby has infiltrated and subverted the foreign policy of the US, from rainbow flags at half-mast to a clandestine visit by the US LGBT Envoy Randy Berry. She is also aware of the depths the LGBT lobby would sink to: manipulating a horrible tragedy as a means of advancing an agenda of normalising perversion. And in her position as one of the chief lawmakers of the land, she is sending a warning: a warning to the US that the opponents of the LGBT lobby in Jamaica are not backward and uneducated, but include brilliant legal minds in the highest echelons of academia and politics. And it’s a warning to the wider Jamaican population to keep an eye on furtive diplomatic tactics to undermine our family values and family-friendly laws. Keep holding the Forte, Malahoo!!
Alexander Smith
lexsmith269@gmail.com
I write in response to the commentary regarding a social media post made by Attorney General Marlene Malahoo Forte denouncing the decision of the United States Embassy in Kingston to fly a rainbow flag in solidarity with the victims of the Orlando gay nightclub shooting.
Before the public turns on the attorney general, it should first approach the US Embassy. Some may argue that the half-mast rainbow flag is justified because the Orlando gay nightclub tragedy is the worst shooting massacre in American history. But American history is replete with stories like these. Why, therefore, should an additional rainbow flag be flown at half-mast alongside the American flag? Could it be a reflection of additional significance being attached to the lives lost?
A flag is a political and diplomatic symbol, and the privilege of its possession belongs to a country or group of countries. How can a demographic group within a country be given the diplomatic clout of a country? Are “rainbow” lives (and their loss) now conflated with US policy? I believe the honourable attorney general is more perceptive than her critics. She sees how the LGBT lobby has infiltrated and subverted the foreign policy of the US, from rainbow flags at half-mast to a clandestine visit by the US LGBT Envoy Randy Berry. She is also aware of the depths the LGBT lobby would sink to: manipulating a horrible tragedy as a means of advancing an agenda of normalising perversion. And in her position as one of the chief lawmakers of the land, she is sending a warning: a warning to the US that the opponents of the LGBT lobby in Jamaica are not backward and uneducated, but include brilliant legal minds in the highest echelons of academia and politics. And it’s a warning to the wider Jamaican population to keep an eye on furtive diplomatic tactics to undermine our family values and family-friendly laws. Keep holding the Forte, Malahoo!!
Alexander Smith
lexsmith269@gmail.com