Reason for Honduras’ LGBT community to be gay

25/02/2011

The Obama administration’s decision on Wednesday to end its constitutional defence of a federal law banning same-sex marriage may have caught some people off guard; for one thing, it never seemed to carve itself a niche in the public discourse in the way its chic policy cousin “Don’t ask don’t tell” did. And though I’m sure those who follow these things closely saw Congress’ repeal of the latter as natural segue, for a Canadian without a close ear on the pulse of Barack’s gay rights agenda—this was foreshadowed by a comment he made almost a month ago.

With the leader of the free world’s attention presumably focused on the revolutions besieging North Africa and the Middle East (there wasn’t even been time to address the unrest in Bolivia)—Honduras’ LGBT community?

From the President’s Press release on January 27, 2011:

“At home and around the world, LGBT persons continue to be subjected to unconscionable bullying, discrimination, and hate. In the weeks preceding David Kato’s murder in Uganda, five members of the LGBT community in Honduras were also murdered. It is essential that the Governments of Uganda and Honduras investigate these killings and hold the perpetrators accountable.”

I acknowledge he led with the David Kato murder, but any statement by the President about LGBT rights in a Central American country had to presage a large domestic policy announcement...

So what exactly has been going on in Honduras? What got the President’s attention?

He mentioned five murders in the weeks preceding Kato’s murder. That’d be 5 out of 34 murders in the last 18 months—more than double the number recorded in the five years previous.

The most horrific of these five murders was that of “Lady Oscar”.

Óscar Martínez, a 45-year-old gay transvestite was stabbed, tied to a chair, and burned alive three days before Christmas.

Three weeks before his murder, he reported an assault and actually indentified three of his attackers.

That proved to be a costly decision. The day of the crime, witnesses saw two men chasing him.

No one did anything to help.

In a country where only one in twenty murders is solved, the murder of an LGBT Honduran is rarely ever investigated.

Indyra Mendoza, a coordinator with a gay rights group based in Tegucigalpa, described the situation as follows:

“On the street—people insult you, the police hit you. I have trans friends who are shot right in the street and they won’t even remove the body because they say they have aids.”

The government of Porfirio Lobo is taking symbolic steps forward. In November they established a Ministry of Justice and Human Rights that’s been assigned the task of investigating these unsolved murders.

But I doubt they’ll come up with much.

Honduras is one of the poorest countries in a poor region, and the Lobo government is still primarily concerned with both gaining recognition of the post-Zelaya government from those countries still holding out, and re-admittance into the Organization of American States.

Nonetheless, there’s certainly some solace for Honduras’ LGBT community in knowing Uncle Sam is keeping an eye on the situation.