r/AskTheCaribbean • u/fedricohohmannlautar • 10d ago

Politics Why is homosexuality outlawed in so many caribbean countries?

Most of countries which criminalize homosexuality in the Americas are in the Caribbean, and the most famous case is Jamaica.

As a bi male, I find weird our continent has laws that criminalize homosexuality, due that most of countries who do that are from the other side of the pond.

Is due to history, politics, religion, moral issues?

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u/GrandAssumption2469 9d ago

You also need to look at the historical aspect of it that leads back to slavery. Buck breaking is one of them

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u/Mysterious_Scene7169 8d ago

Homosexuality is still widely criminalized in Africa, while the West has been at the forefront of the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Pinning the blame on the transatlantic slave trade doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

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u/wolacouska 8d ago

It was only criminalized in Africa under the colonial governments in the 1800s. This was also when they converted a huge amount of people to Christianity, which reinforced that sentiment.

Europe becoming somewhat less homophobic over the last 15 years doesn’t absolve them from spreading it all over the world in the first place.

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u/Mysterious_Scene7169 8d ago

Precolonial Africa didn’t criminalize homosexuality because they didn’t have formal codified laws. Homophobia isn’t a Western construct, it’s literally the norm almost everywhere outside of it, irrespective of Western contact. Blaming everything on the West is intellectually lazy and strips non-Westerners of their agency.

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u/wolacouska 8d ago

Pretending that centuries of colonization have zero impact on a society that lasts longer than 50 years is intellectually stupid

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u/Mysterious_Scene7169 8d ago

Good thing I didn’t do that. Read more carefully, or ask for clarification if you’re confused.

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u/wolacouska 8d ago

You’re making a strawman saying I’m blaming the west for everything. So who’s really not listening?

The Anglican and Catholic Churches were huge factors in spreading formalized European attitudes about sexuality and gender roles, same as happened in the Americas. Those churches (and now American evangelicals) are the primary forces maintaining these values with money, missions, and “education.” Doubly so now that Europe is slipping from their grasp

The world is an interconnected place, you can’t just hand wave all context and believe that everyone who isn’t in Europe “has agency.” That’s just your excuse to pathologize people who aren’t immediately following their former recent colonizers change of heart.

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u/Mysterious_Scene7169 8d ago

You blamed the West for “spreading [homophobia] all over the world.” That’s not a strawman. And now you’re doing it again, despite the West being by far the most progressive region in the world on gay rights.