(Kingston) Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding has told Parliament his government will not yield to “perhaps the most organized lobby in the world” and will not abolish prison sentences for sodomy.

Golding made the comment during debate on a new sexual offences law primarily aimed at combating rape and child abuse. Jamaican LGBT rights groups and international human rights organizations had urged the government to include a repeal of the sodomy law in the new act.

Gay sex is punishable by up to 7 years in prison under a law which dates back to British colonial rule. Britain has long since abolished the law and has urged its former colonies to do the same.

“We are not going to yield to the pressure, whether that pressure comes from individual organizations, individuals, whether that pressure comes from foreign governments or groups of countries, to liberalize the laws as it relates to buggery,” Golding told Parliament .

“Every society is shaped and defined by certain moral standards and the laws that evolve in that society are informed by a framework that the society recognizes. If we start to yield; if we start to liberalize in the direction that strong organized lobby would insist that we should, then where do you draw the line?” the Prime Minister said.

But Golding also distanced himself from another member of Parliament who called for stiffer sentences.

 MP Ernest Smith last month suggested life sentences for homosexuality. He also called for the prosecution of LGBT rights groups Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, and J-FLAG under the country’s law against conspiring to corrupt public morals. 

“I disagree with the comments he made about the rights of persons who advocate for liberation of laws relating to sexual offences, to facilitate, to allow persons the right of choice in their sexual practices,” Golding said.

Jamaica has been described by human rights groups as having the worst record of any country in the New World in its treatment of gays and lesbians.

In January 2008 a group of men approached a house where four males lived in the central Jamaican town of Mandeville, and demanded that they leave the community because they were gay, according to Jamaican human rights activists who spoke with the victims. 

Later that evening, a mob returned and surrounded the house. The four men inside called the police when they saw the crowd gathering. The mob started to attack the house, shouting and throwing bottles. 

Those in the house called police again and were told that the police were on the way. Approximately half an hour later, 15-20 men broke down the door and began beating and slashing the inhabitants.

Human Rights Watch, quoting local activists said that police did not arrive until a half hour after the mob had broken into the house – 90 minutes after the men first called for help. 

One of the victims managed to flee with the mob pursuing. A Jamaican newspaper reported that blood was found at the mouth of a nearby pit, suggesting he had fallen inside or may have been killed nearby. 

The police escorted the three other victims away from the scene; two of them were taken to the hospital. One of the men had his left ear severed, his arm broken in two places, and his spine reportedly damaged.

There have been no arrests. 

The attack echoes another incident in the same town on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007 when approximately 100 men gathered outside a church where 150 people were attending the funeral of a gay man. 

According to mourners, the crowd broke the windows with bottles and shouted, “We want no battyman [gay] funeral here. Leave or else we’re going to kill you. We don’t want no battyman buried here in Mandeville.” 

Several mourners inside the church called the police to request protection. After half an hour, three police officers arrived. 

Human Rights Watch said that instead of protecting the mourners, police socialized with the mob, laughing along at the situation. 

A highway patrol car subsequently arrived, and one of the highway patrol officers reportedly told the churchgoers, “It’s full time this needs to happen. Enough of you guys.” 

The highway patrol officers then drove off. The remaining officers at the scene refused to intervene when the mob threatened the mourners with sticks, stones, and batons as they tried to leave the service. Only when several gay men among the mourners took knives from their cars for self-defense did police reportedly take action by firing their guns into the air. Officers stopped gay men from leaving and searched their vehicles, but did not restrain or detain members of the mob, Human Rights Watch said.

More than 30 gay men are believed to have been murdered since 1997 , J-FLAG says. In most of the cases the killers have never been brought to trial.

Arrests, however have been made in several cases which received international attention.

In 2004 Brian Williamson, Jamaica’s leading LGBT civil rights advocate, was brutally murdered. He had been stabbed at least 70 times in the neck. A 25-year-old man is currently serving a life sentence for the murder.

In December 2005, Lenford “Steve” Harvey, who ran Jamaica AIDS Support for Life, was killed.

Harvey was shot to death on the eve of World AIDS Day. His organization provided support to gay men and sex workers. Four men were arrested almost a year later.

In 2006, the bodies of two women believed to have been in a lesbian relationship were found dumped in a septic pit behind a home they shared. The killers of Candice Williams and Phoebe Myrie have not been caught.

Students at University of the West Indies in Kingston rioted last year as police attempted to protect a gay student and escort him from the campus. The incident began when the student was chased across the campus by another student who claimed the gay man had attempted to proposition him in a washroom.

The same year, a young man plunged to his death off a pier in Kingston after reportedly being chased through the streets by a mob yelling homophobic epithets.

In February 2007, three men in “tight jeans” and wearing what some witnesses described as makeup were cornered by a mob of 2000 in a drugstore. There were yells of “kill them” along with gay slurs and demands the three be sent out “to face justice”. Police had to fire teargas into the crowd to rescue the three. 

Reggae, or Jamaican dancehall music, is blamed for fueling homophobia. Reggae star BujuBanton’s hit song Boom Boom Bye Bye  threatens gay men with a “gunshot in ah head.”