With a boost from Rihanna, Barbados rejects homophobia
Barbados elected its first female prime minister on Thursday as the opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) took all the seats in parliament. The BLP’s platform calls for a referendum on LGBT issues.
The new prime minister, Mia Mottley, won after overcoming a homophobic campaign by the ruling Democratic Labour Party, which criticized her presumed sexuality.
Mottley previously served as the country’s Attorney General, starting in 2001. In that position, she commissioned a study on laws that affected HIV interventions.
The study recommended scrapping the country’s anti-sodomy law. Though largely unenforced, it is the worst in the Western Hemisphere, calling for life imprisonment. At the time, the proposal to repeal the anti-sodomy law ran into strong public opposition and was dropped.
Late in the campaign, Barbadian pop star Rihanna gave Mottley a boost by commenting on Instagram that Mottley deserved to be elected prime minister.
In return, Motley thanked Rihanna for “all that love and support and blessings.”
The BLP has been out of power for a decade.
This article includes information from activist Maurice Tomlinson.
Related articles:
- Barbados Pride combats nation’s anti-LGBT hatred (November 2017, 76crimes.com)
- In Barbados, anti-gay march ends in mini-Pride Parade (October 2017, 76crimes.com)
- Barbados training: Police learn about LGBTI community (March 2017, 76crimes.com)
- Barbados protests seek repeal of harsh buggery law (August 2015, 76crimes.com)
- Will tourist-dependent Barbados risk staying anti-gay?
- Caribbean youths seek repeal of 6 nations’ anti-gay laws
- Queen honors LGBTI leader seeking change in Barbados
- Progress in Barbados despite harsh anti-gay law
- Barbados: No plan to drop life sentence for anti-sodomy law
Seriously? Seriously? This had much less to do with the by-the -way words of one pop star, than with the tsunami of votes by thousands on thousands of Barbadians. You trivialize the issue and the impact by headlining Rihanna. Shame.