Glen Yearwood, an Afro-Caribbean media strategist from London, has found himself in the middle of an attempted rapprochment between anti-gay reggae singers and British gay rights groups outraged at lyrics they believe could incite anti-gay violence.

Outrage!'s "Stop Murder Music" campaign (jointly run with the Black Gay Men's Advisory Group and Jamaican gay rights organisation J-Flag) had skilfully targeted eight leading Jamaican music performers who were exposed for recording homophobic lyrics. Artists such as the dancehall reggae star Beenie Man whose repertoire includes the song "Batty Man Fi Dead" were banned. But in persuading police, local authorities and former Home Secretary David Blunkett that the presence of Beenie Man and other anti-gay performers represented a threat to public order, the Outrage! campaign had damaged the careers of other artists and promoters with interests in festivals and concerts that were cancelled.

Yearwood, 41, could see the damage being done to one of the leading sources of income within Afro-Caribbean culture. "What was at stake was the equity of the reggae music brand. There was more than 40 years of equity under threat," he says. The marketer, who grew up in Luton, sought to explain to gay rights activists that the homophobic lyrics, reprehensible as they sounded, were the product of a Jamaican culture which still clings to British colonial laws that punish gay sex with 10 years' hard labour.

At the same time, with his clipped English accent and a family background that harks back to the small Caribbean nation of St Vincent and the Grenadines, he had to win over the reggae industry, which still has its roots in Jamaica's poorest urban neighbourhoods. Yearwood says: "What we had to negotiate was what is fair and honest criticism of a lifestyle and what can be perceived as inciting violence."

...Last month an agreement was reached by which the leading reggae labels and promoters agreed not to promote homophobic songs.

I'm glad. You may express opposition to gay marriage; you may withdraw your children from school classes celebrating "sexual diversity" if you would rather teach "tolerance" your own way; and you may even argue that homosexuality is not innate. None of that by itself makes you a bigot or homophobe, and those who claim otherwise by rote are simpletons.

Advocating violence against gays, or using perjorative language, on the other hand, does make you a pariah. It is a sad day when musical performers, youths, or grown men who ought to know better, feel they need to assert their manhood by lashing out at gays.

On the flip side, gays in many urban enclaves such as San Francisco and Seattle could do themselves and their brethren a favor, by dispensing with lewd and lascivious public conduct at annual Gay Pride parades. And I personally see no reason why I should have been subjected to the sight of a man - waiting in line to get into a gay bar on the 2900 block of N. Chicago's Lincoln Avenue in the early 90s - wearing leather pants with a large, strategically cut-out section showcasing his entire posterior. This was steps away from a family diner, BTW. Similarly, I had trouble swallowing the inclusion of "potential public sex environments" in a gay-oriented neighborhood living feature from Seattle's Sandinista weekly, The Stranger.

Respect cuts both ways.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at March 8, 2005 01:37 PM

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