Longtime Jamaican activist celebrates long-term marriage

Jamaica-Canadian comment: ‘My marriage is not a threat to any heterosexual union’

**Jamaica native Maurice Tomlinson (left) and Tom Decker celebrate their 15th anniversary. (Photo courtesy of Maurice Tomlinson)**

Longtime Jamaican-Canadian LGBTQ+ rights activist Maurice Tomlinson celebrates and comments on his 15 years of marriage to Tom Decker.

COMMENTARY

By Maurice Tomlinson

On Aug. 28, I marked an event that I thought impossible in my lifetime – my husband and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. We got married in Canada where I now reside, and my only regret is that I cannot live in my homeland with my partner of a decade and a half without seriously compromising our basic humanity.

Because of Jamaica’s constitutional ban on the recognition of any form of same-sex unions my husband and I would be a legal strangers to each other if we returned to live on the island. So, among other things, we could not make health decisions for each other in case of a medical emergency, he cannot get Jamaican citizenship, we would face stiff tax penalties, and we would have to make exceptional arrangements so that all the property that we accumulated together would be inherited by the surviving spouse.

Our 15 years together is not just an anniversary, it is also a testimony to gay love. Because, like many couples we had our challenges and came close to calling it quits many, many times. But we are still together at a time when Jamaica is having a divorce “boom” as reported by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) and one local newspaper [Editor’s note: As well as an increase from 1.2 to 1.9 divorces per 1,000 marriages in Jamaica from 2005 to 2024, according to a report in the International Journal of Social Sciences and Management Review].

In contrast, globally the group with the lowest divorce rate is homosexual couples. [Editor’s note: That’s according to the best available statistics, though they’re still sparse.]

Portrait of newlyweds Tom Decker (left) and Maurice Tomlinson (right). (Photo courtesy of Maurice Tomlinson) — **Portrait of then newlyweds Tom Decker (left) and Maurice Tomlinson (right). (Photo courtesy of Maurice Tomlinson)**

My marriage is not a threat to any heterosexual union, unless one party to that union is gay. In fact, had I been able to marry a man in the first place I would have spared my ex-wife and son the pain of divorce and a messy family break up. And I am not alone. There are many “lavender” marriages in Jamaica where men are forced to have female partners to “mask” or “cure” their homosexuality. In my experience these never work, and the result is that gay men continue engaging in clandestine relationships with other men. This wreaks untold psychological, financial and physical harm on the men, women and children of these ill-fated unions.

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Ironically, by imposing a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages Jamaica has damaged the very institution that it seeks to protect!

As the highest tribunal in the Western Hemisphere, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, has ruled, marriage equality is a right for all citizens of the Americas under the American Convention on Human Rights. Jamaica is a signatory to that treaty and is therefore in violation of its international obligations by maintaining the ban on gay unions.

It is time that Jamaica lived up to our motto “Out of Many One People” and scarp the ban on same-sex marriages. That is one way to guarantee strong and resilient marriages and robust family life for all our people.