Sizzla, you dumb-fuck, first of all, you can't advocate murder without expecting to face trial. Second, God doesn't have a "gay law."
Interesting that something called 365Gay.com gets onto Yahoo News pages, though.


Anti-Gay Reggae Star Refuses Apology
by Peter Moore 365Gay.com London Bureau

(London) A reggae performer whose music advocates killing gays says he has nothing to apologize for, instead claiming it is gays who must beg forgiveness.

"They can't ask me to apologize," Sizzla told BBC radio on Thursday. "They've got to apologize to God because they break God's law."

Sizzla, whose real name is Miguel Collins, is one of the largest selling reggae artists in the UK.

His hit tune Pump Up has the line “Shot battybwoy, my big gun boom (Shoot queers, my big gun goes boom)”.

He has consistently refused calls for an apology and continues to perform the song.

At a concert in Chicago in April 2002 he told the audience: “I won’t take back my words…I kill sodomites and queers, they bring AIDS and disease upon people…shoot and kill them”.

Earlier this month the British government refused to allow Sizzla into the UK. He is currently under investigation to determine if his music violates Britain's anti-hate laws.

Sizzla's interview with the BBC was his first since the Metropolitan Police announced their investigation.

"Why must I apologize to corruption? How can I do that?" he told the station, adding he is not a threat to gay men and lesbians.

"I sing 'fire burn for homosexuals' and sometime in some street I walk, I see them and me no touch them," he said.

"If I don't like what you're doing I don't come there, if you don't like what I'm doing or what I say you don't come where I'm at."

But, British gay rights group Outrage, which has been leading the attack on Sizzla and other reggae performers accused of spreading homophobia says that the music has helped fuel an increase in gay-hate crimes in the UK.

On October 31, gay man was beaten to death in a park in what investigators called a homophobic attack. David Morley, 37, suffered serious head injuries in the beating. He died in hospital several hours later. His murder led to the cancellation of Sizzla's visa days before he was to have appeared in London.

"I'm with Frosty. Down with all violence in songs. Burn all gangsta rap. torch all death metal. Make Slayer pay for the hate crimes they have commited."

The sarcasm isn't meant to be insultuous. I'm just confused. Why is violence so much worse when it's directed at blacks or gays?

I think justice against violence should be equal opportunity.

If I were to kill someone for their ice cream preference its regular old homicide. If I were to kill someone for their sexual preference it's all of a sudden a hate crime. I don't get it. When someone tells me they like cheddar caviar chocolate chip it's not joy I'm feeling, that person must go. Is that not as hateful?

Not only did I not say what you imply I said, but your analogy doesn't hold. Sizzla calls for killing gays in the real world. In interviews he refuses to apologize and says gays SHOULD be killed. That's a far cry from the story-telling of gangsta rap.

I didn't say a damn thing about hate crimes. Sizzla advocates homicide. That's criminal. It's one thing to advocate it in a song. It's quite another to back up the call for murder when you're asked about it by interviewers.

I will say one thing that I like about up front hatred: at least you know who your enemies are.

Coma, you've gotta think a little harder. A hate crime is when you kill (or advocate the killing of) a group of people with whom you've had no personal contact but have arbitrarily decided to identify under the same label. So if you started to seriously call for the death of everybody who enjoyed an ice cream flavor you didn't approve of, then damn right you'd be guilty of a hate crime.

And, um, insultuous? Isn't it weird how many of those ten dollar words turn out to be counterfeit?

fuck da police

There are however, many instances where they take these laws to an illogical, and unintended extreme.

I kinda think dead is dead, ya know?

But I do agree that Mr.Sizzla is an illinformed idiot. I actually think this a widespread problem in hardcore reggae/dancehall. There were some other people who got in trouble of this sort of thing in the mid nineties.

I've heard it's a Jamaican thing; homophobia's supposedly pretty common there.

i posted this on the other board a while ago.

source

Growing up gay in Jamaica
The homophobic lyrics of Jamaican reggae stars have hit the headlines, but what is the reality of being gay in a society where it is illegal to practise your sexuality?

Michael is verbally abused, threatened and spat at every time he leaves his home in Kingston, Jamaica, but the 20-year-old student considers himself lucky.

He has friends who have been beaten and stabbed because they are gay but, as yet, he has not been attacked. He knows it could happen anytime.

"My friends have been chopped up and all of that, you'd think they were a piece of meat in the slaughter house. It is terrible," he says.

Every time he goes out he is called a "battyman" - an abusive term for a gay man - and says the general attitude in Kingston is if you are homosexual you may as well be dead.

Asylum

"There is always someone who says 'battyman, beat him up, chop him up, kill him'. I fret and check if they are coming to get me," he says.

Jamaica has a history of entrenched homophobia and violent attacks on gay men and women.

The situation hit the headlines in the UK earlier this month when two controversial Jamaican reggae acts - Elephant Man and Vybz Kartel - were dropped from the British Music of Black Origin (Mobo) awards for refusing to apologise in writing for homophobic lyrics.

The row also resulted in an event, flagged-up as the biggest reggae festival in the UK for almost 20 years, being cancelled earlier this month.

But homophobia in Jamaica goes far beyond songs lyrics, with gay men and women "beaten, cut, burned, raped and shot on account of their sexuality", according to Amnesty International.

It says while no official statistics are available, according to published reports at least 30 gay men are believed to have been murdered in Jamaica since 1997.

And at least five Jamaicans have been granted asylum in the UK in the last two years because their lives had been threatened as a result of their sexual identity.

Prison riot

"We have talked to people who have been forced to leave their communities after being publicly vilified, threatened or attacked on suspicion of being gay. They face homelessness, isolation or worse," says Lesley Warner, Amnesty International UK media director.

The country's law makes any act of physical intimacy between men punishable by jail, with the possibility of 10-years hard labour.

Few people are openly gay as once their sexuality becomes known they are at risk of attack and often have to move.

Reporting abuse and harassment to the police is not an option for many as officers are frequently known to standby or even join in attacks, says Amnesty.

Michael has not told his family, who live in a parish just outside Kingston, that he is gay as he knows he will be ostracised and even beaten.

"My aunt is the co-founder of our local church and it preaches that homosexuality is a sin," he says.

"If my aunt or any member of the church found out about my sexuality they would just tell everyone and I wouldn't be able to come around any more. I would get hurt."

The church has traditionally been a major force in Jamaican society and plays a significant part in people's daily lives. Many preachers use the Bible to support homophobic sentiments.

Activist murdered

Another major influence in people's lives is dancehall music. Its stars, including international artists such as Beenie Man and Buju Banton, are regarded as "teachers" by the young, says Michael.

The music is steeped in homophobia, with lyrics from Buju Banton's Boom Boom Bye Bye, threatening gay men with a "gunshot in ah head" and Beenie Man's stating "I'm a dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays".

The chance of attitudes changing towards the gay community is small, says Michael.

"Everybody just listens to the church and dancehall music. The church is saying homosexuality is wrong and the entertainers are saying 'kill them' - how are we going to be able to live openly as gays in Jamaica?"

Concern among human rights groups has intensified even further following the murder of the country's most prominent gay activist in June this year.

Brian Williamson, 59, was one of the few gay Jamaicans willing to stand up in public and be seen talking about homosexuality as a gay man.

The motive for the murder was officially given as robbery, but the gay rights group he founded, J-Flag, believes the killing was a hate crime.

Free condoms

Campaigners say Jamaica's anti-sodomy law also has wider implications in the fight against HIV and Aids in the country.

In 1997, when prison authorities attempted to distribute condoms to inmates at Kingston's main prison, it led to riots in which 16 allegedly gay men died and 40 more injured, says Amnesty.

J-Flag says the law inhibits people from revealing their sexuality to doctors. As a result they are not getting access to appropriate healthcare.

But despite the difficulties and discrimination Michael faces in Jamaica as a gay man, he loves his country and is not prepared to leave.

"I have to stay and try to build my country into a better place," he says.

I knew I'd read that somewhere!

I quite like Sizzla. I own records by him. As well as being anti-homosexual, he is also a hardline racist and well....just an all round mental case really.

I've got nothing against his music. He just needs to be able to realize that you can't tell reporters that "no, I wasn't being symbolic, I actually meant you should indeed kill gay people" and not expect you're eventually going to be charged with a crime. And if someone actual does kill a gay man and cites Sizzla as his impetus, I'd like to personally kick Sizzla's teeth in.

And, as I stated before, there is no "God's law" against homosexuals. There are a few biblical passages that say things like "an abomination for a man to lie with a man," but most other references, like to Sodom and Gommorah, aren't specifically about homosexuality (that story is more about horny townsfolk attempting to rape angels then about being gay).

I said I was confused....what more do you want?

I do agree the actions of a man say more than his words (like Ice T shouting Cop Killer and then playing one on TV).

But it seems Sizzla goes both ways himself (pun intended). Advocating violence in his concert (playing under the pretense of his onstage persona) and then stating in an interview that he would not harm anyone.

Why is he being singled out? Homophobia is rampant throughout reggae, and violence is rampant throughout gangsta rap?

In any regards I deplore him, so let's just agree on that.

He's being singled out only because I happened to read that particular article and decided to post it. Some of my favorite reggae artists (Yellowman for instance) have said horrible things about gays in the past, as well (Shabba Ranks and Beenie Man more recently, though I'm not so big on their songs).

Well...the Jamaican version of the Bible more or less says that they are supposed to torment homosexuals.