What About Malahoo Forte’s Right To Free Speech.…..

It seem that Jamaica’s Attorney General Marlene Malahoo Forte,is hav­ing a dif­fi­cult time avoid­ing con­tro­ver­sy since tak­ing office. Immediately upon becom­ing Attorney General Forte speak­ing in St James told mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces that she will be pay­ing close atten­tion to ensure that they do not abuse the rights of civil­ians. Forte was speak­ing in Montego Bay Cultural Center in Sam Sharpe Square, Montego Bay, dur­ing the third in a series of island-wide town-hall meet­ings put on by Security Minister Robert Montague.
Said Malahoo Forte ,  “I assure you sir (secu­ri­ty min­is­ter) that in my role as mem­ber of Parliament I will ensure that all coöper­a­tion is pro­vid­ed to the secu­ri­ty forces. But I say to the secu­ri­ty forces also, in my role as mem­ber of Parliament and as attor­ney gen­er­al, I will be watch­ing vig­i­lant­ly how the secu­ri­ty forces car­ry out their work in this chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ment. “I know SSP (Steve) McGregor under­stands my own view that the police — and com­mis­sion­er, you may be hear­ing it for the first time – are not enti­tled to break the law in their efforts to uphold the law, not enti­tled to abuse the rights of our cit­i­zens, how­ev­er chal­leng­ing the cir­cum­stances will be,”.

Malahoo Forte’s state­ments were absolute­ly not unrea­son­able giv­en anoth­er forum but this writer thought that giv­en that forum which for all intents and pur­pos­es was geared at find­ing solu­tions to the nation’s crime prob­lem her rebuke were offen­sive, patron­iz­ing , dis­re­spect­ful and amount­ed to grandstanding.
This writer was cer­tain­ly not shy in call­ing her out for that blunder.
As did a host of online read­ers who felt sim­i­lar­ly as well.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​a​l​a​h​o​o​-​f​o​r​t​e​-​s​h​a​m​e​l​e​s​s​-​g​r​a​n​d​s​t​a​n​d​i​n​g​-​j​u​s​t​-​s​h​u​t​-​a​l​r​e​a​dy/

After the night­club shoot­ing in Orlando Florida a few nights ago the United States decid­ed to fly the Gay-pride rain­bow flag at half staff at all it’s embassies across the world. This prompt­ed Attorney General Malahoo Forte to tweet the following .
“I strong­ly con­demn #OrlandoNightClubShooting but find it dis­re­spect­ful of Jamaica’s laws to have #RainbowFlag flown here #MyPersonalView.
The United States Embassy in Kingston alleged­ly tweet­ed back .
“@mmalahooforte we’re lis­ten­ing. Explain the legal rea­son­ing? It [the Orlando shoot­ing] was an attack of ter­ror and hate, tar­get­ing the LGBT community!”

Since the tweet Attorney General Malahoo Forte has tak­en sig­nif­i­cant flack as is to be expect­ed with sen­si­tive issues as these.
The Opposition People’s National Party has since issued a state­ment over the sig­na­ture of Morais Guy .

“The Jamaican Government has to be reminded that the conduct of business on premises on which embassies and high commissions are located must be regarded as business being conducted on foreign soil.“We believe there is a requirement for clarification and, if necessary, apology by our foreign ministry to the government and people of the United States consequent on the recent comments of the attorney general regarding business taking place on the grounds of their embassy in Kingston and which is consistent with business that is taking place at their embassies across the globe,”.

On the oth­er hand there has also been strong sup­port for Malahoo Forte com­ing from two Christian lob­bies, the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship and the Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society (JCHS). In a state­ment the Organizations respond­ed con­demn­ing the killings while say­ing this.

“The flying of the rainbow flag, a counter-cultural symbol of a movement dedicated to undermining Jamaica’s buggery and marriage laws, sends an overt symbol that the United States Embassy in Jamaica is aligned with those who would break our laws”. “Notwithstanding the fact that the embassy is considered American territory in international law, the LCF asks US Ambassador Luis G. Moreno to immediately take down the flag and, in so doing, eliminate potential misunderstanding and barriers to the natural outpouring of sympathy and support for the United States and those who have suffered.”

Meanwhile, the JCHS ques­tioned if the US Embassy had flown any school or mil­i­tary or church flags after pre­vi­ous mass killings in the US.

“While the US Embassy in Kingston is con­sid­ered to be on US soil, the embassy is still a guest of the Jamaican Government and peo­ple and is expect­ed to con­duct its affairs in a respect­ful man­ner,” the JCHS said.
Of all the argu­ments raised since this non-sto­ry broke I believe the ques­tion com­ing from the JCHS is the most pro­found. Yesterday I wrote about the almost dai­ly mass killings across America and the clas­sic response by the media and politi­cians who fall over them­selves to claim Islamic Terrorism. Ironically most of the ter­ror attacks in the United States has been car­ried out by white male under 35 years old.
Ms Malahoo Forte has a right to her opin­ion as a pri­vate cit­i­zen, and she did say she was speak­ing per­son­al­ly not in her offi­cial capac­i­ty as Attorney General. Even if Ms Forte was speak­ing in her capac­i­ty as Attorney General she would be absolute­ly cor­rect in her statements.
I find the American Embassy’s response both patron­iz­ing and pater­nal­is­tic. Quote “@mmalahooforte we’re lis­ten­ing. Explain the legal reasoning?
Jamaica is a sov­er­eign nation , not a state of the United States. Jamaican laws make it a crime for it’s cit­i­zens to engage in bug­gery. On that basis any for­eign coun­try which is rep­re­sent­ed by a mis­sion or embassy must respect that nation’s laws .
No coun­try can be dis­re­spect­ful of American laws and tra­di­tions while main­tain­ing diplo­mat­ic mis­sions on American soil.
It is remark­able that rather than stand­ing with it’s own Government the People’s National Party sought to cur­ry favor and once again got it total­ly wrong.
The mas­sacre of those inno­cent souls must shake even the most soul­less indi­vid­u­als. Regardless of peo­ple’s sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, reli­gion , race, or any oth­er defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic peo­ple have a right to con­gre­gate with­out the expec­ta­tion that they will be sum­mar­i­ly gunned down in cold blood.
Yet there is no evi­dence that the vic­tims of the night­club shoot­ing were killed because they were Gay. Of course the clas­sic response from the pur­vey­ors of fear with their own per­son­al agen­das are nev­er con­strained by com­mon sense when they run ahead of law enforce­ment agen­cies to make state­ments which are not sup­port­ed or borne out by the evidence.
There is emerg­ing evi­dence with­in the pub­lic space which now indi­cate that the shoot­er may have been gay as well which if true dis­cred­its the notion that the vic­tims were mas­sa­cred because of their sex­u­al orientation.

Neither Jamaica nor Ms Malahoo Forte owes the American Embassy any oblig­a­tion to explain her state­ments. They were sound per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly. It is sad that the oppo­si­tion par­ty and Gay sup­port­ers have allowed pol­i­tics and alle­giances to cloud their judgement.
Gays assume the role of vic­tims but are most intol­er­ant and vehe­ment­ly opposed to the rights of oth­ers to dis­agree with their lifestyles. Daring to dis­agree with them can get one black-list­ed , cost peo­ple their busi­ness­es, their jobs and ostra­cized from society.
Even as they claim to be seek­ing to live their lives the way they want like every­one else, their actions are dia­met­ri­cal­ly opposed to those protestations.
Their right to live their lives the way they chose can­not come at the expense of Ms Malahoo Forte’s right to free speech .
As such we stand with the Attorney General against this tyranny.