Further to this Turks & Caicos story, I asked Philo at queerday for the source on this story, and he gave it to me, here.It turns out that the government leader, Michael Misick, had been accused of immorality and indecency for allowing queers to dock at the Turks & Caicos, simply because the islands are supposedly facing "financial ruin".
The leader of the opposition, Derek Taylor, scolded Misick, saying he was risking the corruption of the islands' morals; Misick shot back that Taylor was being hypocritical because it was HIM, when he had been government leader earlier, who had originally signed an agreement allowing queers onto the islands, back when Club Med had been hosting a "gay convention" there.
Besides, Misick maintained, neither he nor his Ministers had known that the approaching ship had any of the dreaded queers aboard. Nevertheless, Misick hastened to add:
quote:
Whilst as a government we respect civil liberties, the freedom of choice and we do refrain from discriminating, we are in no way supportive of or encourage the alternative lifestyle of these individuals. We regret that our people and especially our children have been exposed to this type of activity and express concern in this regard.
Whew! They got lucky that time... no gay cooties!
But I guess we queers should be satisfied that there's no *serious* homophobia going on here, lynching and the like. Just a couple of opportunistic politicians using other people's homophobia to try and score points on each other... No big deal.
And hey... if there are any young Turks and Caicos residents out there who happen to be gay or lesbian and who want to "come out"... Well, hey, they can always be voted off the island...
Maybe they can make a few bucks by getting Survivior to come down and tape the whole thing for television. Yeah, that'd be cool...
Wouldn't it?
[ 11 April 2005: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]
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posted 08 April 2005 12:41 PM
