I don't think they'll twist themselves into knots over this one. They'll say, let's see... God hates, I don't know... pot heads? God hates heathen Rastafarians who smoke the devil's weed? Yep, I think that is exactly what they will say.

Sorry Dan. That was easy. Better luck next hurricane.

JAMAICA is homophobic?! Maybe I just haven't paid much attention, but that comes as a real surprise to me. Who'da thunk a place that most assume to be predominately Rasta would be a beacon of hate? I mean, who has room for hate when they're high? If that's true (which, noting you've a source, I can assume it is), then hooray for devastating hurricanes. But el is right, they'll probably chock that one up to God's wrath for potheads. Just goes to show, god (read: christians) is just a bitter asshole as a result of no one listening to him anymore who needs to lighten up.

Come To Puerto Vallarta Dan they are not homophobic here.
We had a huge Hurricane here about five years ago and nobody blamed anybody but the weather. We even have a lot of Christians here but not very homophobic that I am aware of anyway.

wait, wasn't Katrina sent to the South because they voted for Bush, not because of abortion?

X marks the spot. For the hurricane! HAHAHAHAHA! Get it?!?!

I'm such a moron.

Has anybody seen me?

I agree with #1. They will say God hates the Pot. (When everyone knows Jesus was a total hippie)

God hates "batty boys" obviously, and this is His way of saying "Boom, bye bye".

Hmmm...if God hates Jamaica because of reggae, I will applaud His taste in music.

Roots and most reggae is not homophobic. marley, cliff, eek a mouse, ziggy. big difference between them and shabba ranks and yellowman. but to you honky crackers is all the same. white people love to talk shit they know little about. dancehall, yes very homophobic, but reggae does not call for the slaughter of homosexuals. you honkies are so full of shit, and talk about shit you know little about. is like when bill o talks about all rap being mysoginist, and not just one type of gansgsta rap. jamaica has problems with homophobia and most of it comes from your honky baptist ministers that went to the island and turned everybody into loony evangelicals.

You win Dan. Hopefully Dean crushes Jamaica, and all the peaceful, open-minded people that live amongst the homophobes will lose their property and maybe their lives. That will show those 1st world right-wingers.

Hmmm... or maybe there is no "god" smiting people. No silly "god" at all. Maybe it's all just random? No, there MUST be some invisible avenger up there. Otherwise, my life is meaningless.

Haile Selassie: "You win, Dan." He wins?! Wow.

Honestly, I think some societies are so rotten, so riddled with brutal intolerance that natural disasters might be considered karma or even a global blessing. Not sure if Jamaica is /quite/ that bad, but it is an unbelievably violent and murderous place, and a true nightmare for anyone who happens to be gay... or even just happens to look at someone the wrong way. It's like a Christian version of Iran. Same degree of violent religious extremism, but in Jamaica it's much more widespread, much more brutal, and with less reason. Put simply, they're fucking nuts in Jamaica and I have a hard time caring what happens to that hell on earth.

Donovan-
I lived in Jamaica for two years, and I agree with you that there are a lot of violent and intolerant people there. Those are the people we read about from comfort of our 1st world enclave. There are many, many more people in Jamaica who are purely good, gentle, tolerant people. To insinuate that it would be objectively good to wipe Jamaica off the map because it would make the world a safer place for gay people is like saying that we should bomb the southern US because there are a lot of racist people there. It's fun to say in jest, but when there's really a hurricane barreling down on your friends, it's a touch insensitive and naive.

COMMENT DELETED: Spam

We remove comments that are off topic, threatening, or commercial in nature, and we do not allow sock-puppetry (impersonating someone else)—or any kind of puppetry, for that matter. We never censor comments based on ideology.

While the Wikipedia entry is correct in this case, Wikipedia is by no means an authoritative source.

What about the people who say that Islam is the cause of anti-gay violence around the world? What will they say is the cause of Jamaica's violent homophobia? Rasta? Weed? Black skin?

As a returned Peace Corps Volunteer that served in Jamaica for three years I can say that there is very little lynching in Jamaica. Yes, Jamaica is a huge pit of homophobia, and it sickened me every day I lived there. But, lynching, no. Beheading, 'chopping' with machetes, random shootings, and mob violence, yes.

Also, there are many wonderful open minded Jamaicans who would be devistated by a hurricane, and many of my friends are still there trying to help the Jamaican people through their Peace Corps assignment.

Funnily, though, most hurricanes miss Jamaica. Why? Jamaicans think it's all the praying they do when they hear one is coming. In addition to being so homophobic they also have the most churches per capita. Interesting connection, huh?

Say \"YES\" to War on Iraq
Liberals Against Liberation

By Dan Savage
\"No to War! No to Oppression!\"

The above anti-war message was delivered to me via a sad-looking pink poster. I pulled the poster off a light pole and hung it in my office over my desk. I look at the poster every day when I sit down to work, and every day I wonder how and when the American left lost its moral compass.

You see, lefties, there are times when saying \"no\" to war means saying \"yes\" to oppression. Don\'t believe me? Go ask a Czech or a European Jew about the British and French saying \"no\" to war with Germany in 1938. War may be bad for children and other living things, but there are times when peace is worse for children and other living things, and this is one of those times. Saying no to war in Iraq means saying yes to the continued oppression of the Iraqi people. It amazes me when I hear lefties argue that we should assassinate Saddam in order to avoid war. If Saddam is assassinated, he will be replaced by another Baathist dictator--and what then for the people of Iraq? More \"peace\"--i.e., more oppression, more executions, more gassings, more terror, more fear.

While the American left is content to see an Iraqi dictator terrorizing the Iraqi people, the Bushies in D.C. are not. \"We do not intend to put American lives at risk to replace one dictator with another,\" Dick Cheney recently told reporters. For those of you who were too busy making papier-mâché puppets of George W. Bush last week to read the papers, you may have missed this page-one statement in last Friday\'s New York Times: \"The White House is developing a detailed plan, modeled on the postwar occupation of Japan, to install an American-led military government in Iraq if the United States topples Saddam Hussein.\"

These developments--a Republican administration recognizing that support for dictators in Third World countries is a losing proposition; a commitment to post-WWII-style nation-building in Iraq--are terrific news for people who care about human rights, freedom, and democracy. They also represent an enormous moral victory for the American left, which has long argued that our support for \"friendly\" dictators around the world was immoral. (Saddam used to be one of those \"friendly\" dictators.) After 9/11, the left argued that our support for brutal dictatorships in the Middle East helped create anti-American hatred. Apparently the Bush administration now agrees--so why isn\'t the American left claiming this victory?

Because claiming this victory means backing this war, and the American left refuses to back this or any war--which makes the left completely irrelevant in any conversation about the advisability or necessity of a particular war. (Pacifism is faith, not politics.) What\'s worse, the left argues that our past support for regimes like Saddam\'s prevents us from doing anything about Saddam now. We supported (and in some cases installed) tyrants, who in turn created despair, which in turn created terrorists, who came over here and blew shit up... so now what do we do? According to the left, we do nothing. It\'s all our fault, so we\'re just going to have to sit back and wait for New York City or D.C. or a big port city (like, say, Seattle or Portland) to disappear.

It seems to me that if supporting tyrants creates terrorists, withdrawing our support from those very same tyrants might help to \"uncreate\" terrorists. Removing the tyrants from power seems an even better way to uncreate terrorists.

But wait! Taking out Saddam means dropping bombs, and dropping bombs only creates more terrorists!

That\'s the lefty argument du jour, and a lot of squish-brains are falling for it, but it\'s not an argument that the historical record supports. The United States dropped a hell of a lot of bombs on Serbia, Panama, Grenada, Vietnam, Germany, Japan, and Italy. If dropping bombs creates terrorists, where are all the German terrorists? Or the Italian terrorists? Or the Vietnamese terrorists?

But wait! Iraq isn\'t in cahoots with al Qaeda, so why attack Iraq in the war on terrorism?

Because we\'re not just at war with al Qaeda, stupid. We\'re at war with a large and growing Islamo-fascist movement that draws its troops and funds from all over the Islamic world. Islamo-fascism is a regional problem, not just an al Qaeda problem or an Afghanistan problem. To stop Islamo-fascism, we\'re going to have to roll back all of the tyrannous and dictatorial regimes in the Middle East while simultaneously waging war against a militant, deadly religious ideology. To be completely honest, I would actually prefer that the United States go to war against the ridiculous royal family in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have been using American money to export their intolerant and deadly strain of Islam all over the world (the kind of Islam that inspires people to blow up discos in Bali), and getting rid of the Saudi royal family and their fascist clerics makes more sense than getting rid of Saddam. But the Saudis are our \"allies,\" so perhaps we can pressure them to reform, as Josh Feit suggests.

In the meantime, invading and rebuilding Iraq will not only free the Iraqi people, it will also make the Saudis aware of the consequences they face if they continue to oppress their own people while exporting terrorism and terrorists. The War on Iraq will make it clear to our friends and enemies in the Middle East (and elsewhere) that we mean business: Free your people, reform your societies, liberalize, and democratize... or we\'re going to come over there, remove you from power, free your people, and reform your societies for ourselves.

Post-9/11, post-Bali, what other choice do we have?

Robin-
Nice post. I was Peace Corps Jamaica as well. Munro, St. Elizabeth; '97-'99. I just sent a Western Union down to my people.

What I don't understand is why this is supposed to be funny. Hoping that hurricanes kill whole swaths of people and wreck devastation is the domain of the religious right, Dan. Why sink to their level? Why generalize about people like they do? Now, it you presented this idea with genuine humor, I'd laugh at it. I see the point of what you're saying, but come one.

"One" should be "on."

RE: The Update

Point taken.

You truly are a disgusting human being Dan.

No amount of pathetic explanations make your point valid or true. In this case, the fact that these people are homophobic justifies their death. You disgust me.

Their are thousands of innocent children who may die as a result of this impending calamity. You use their suffering to score points with seattle worst people and make some lame social commentary about conservative christians.

You sicken me and you should be embarased for yourself. What a racist, vindictive, and cruel thing to think.

Your excuse for saying what you said don't cut shit...

Oh, Ecce, we've missed you. Can you quote the part of my original post where I said that people deserved to die because of their homophobia? If I'm going to be convicted of a thought crime it would be nice to see some proof that I, you know, committed it and shit.

Give my regards to Tacoma, Ecce, and remember: It's safe to drink the yellow water.

Dan, has it ever occurred to you that espousing the kind of hatred you oppose is not productive?

Take the high road.

With the exception of Grace Jones and the bassist from Culture Club, fuck Jamaica!

As a gay hurricane buff, I've been practicing sodomy all over the city in the hopes of attracting god's wrath. Nothing so far. Maybe I should try some homophobia just to cover all possible gods.

Yes Dan,

I have missed you too, but I can't be bothered to read most of your drivel due to the fact that I, unlike you, put my family as my number one.

When we spoke on the radio, I was driving through Tacoma to pick up my oldest boy at his grandmothers house. See, unlike you, we embrace family values in our home and family, both immediate and extended have accepted my husband and our children. I think that is very important for children to know and love their grandparents. I live in Seattle and have for the last 15 years. But based on your "advice" column, I would say that you are the one that needs to be reminded that the yellow water is safe to drink.

As for you"Slog" post, You sure are a sly little weasel. You imply that God should smite the Jamaicans for being homophobes, but the fact that you don't believe in GOd makes it more of an ironic musing and a failed attempt to be funny. But using the potential for thousands of dead people to further whatever overplayed predictable lifelong fight you have with people who think different from you (despite whether or not what they think is disgusting - which homophobia is) is beyond the pail. It demonstrates more about you than anything else. You are a depraved disgusting person who has a fetish about the death, pain and torture of innocent people. Hence your repeated posts talking in detail about child abuse/children dying from torture, the rape and molestation of children, your support for war, and now your giddieness at the prospect for mass death to prove some lame ass point.

You are pathetic...

You and your minions really aren't worth my time...

[quote= Dan]What they tell us if God has sent a hurricane to wipe one of the most homophobic countries in the world off the face of the earth?

Gee, maybe God hates reggae.[/quote]

Yeah, I wonder...

Freaking hilarious and too cute by much.

loser

Visited there five years ago and it was horrifying. Huge luxury "compounds" (as we called them) with, basically, slave labor (the locals) serving all-you-can-drink cocktails 24/7 to already drunk white frat couples. The staff everywhere zombified in fear for losing their jobs, forbidden to accept even a tip from a hotel patron as that would disturb the gluttonous 'free for all' the hotel's PR dept. perpetuates. Was one of the worst and most uncomfortable vacations I'd had in my entire life. Trying to leave via their banana republic airport was a joke, too. When the British left years ago the whole place went to shit. Blow it away, blow it away.

I'm with you 100% Dan. I'm sick of gays being told they have to tolerate hatred from certain groups or be labelled racist, islamaphoic, etc. Keep calling people on their bullshit, I respect you and other people in the gay community who won't back down like (sadly enough) many people do when it comes to not being willing to tolerate homophobia when it comes from "politically sensitive" populations.

I was just on gay.com and someone said that someone on Slog wanted Jamacia or Texas or some damn place to get wipped out since they were homophobic or something. The conclusion they had was Slog was a bunch of freaks.(Just reporting what others are now saying about this)

@Ecce

Ecce, Dan isn't worth your time? Then, uh, why do you spend so much time on, ya know, Slog? Or do you post to Slog ironically?

I am Ecce. Ecce is me.

Dan, the last line of your Update (re: TX) is why you are the King of Seattle. If some people can't take a joke, fuck 'em.

And here Ecce is. Spending his time here. Doing this. Whole thing.

Please, please. Stay. It's enthralling.