US LGBT Organizers Redouble Efforts

Against "Kill Gays" Singer

Cancel Buju Banton Website Launched

To Counter Misinformation from His Promoters

From: LGBT Liberation - Chicago - LGBTLiberation@aol.com

It was a short-lived victory for gay rights groups a few weeks ago
after concert promoters AEG Live & Live Nation canceled several
concerts in large cities by Buju Banton, a performer who gruesomely
calls for killing gays in the lyrics of his most well-known song,
"Boom Bye Bye." Some mainstream media outlets wrongly reported that
the entire tour was canceled.

But Banton’s Gargamel label recently announced that the tour was on
with more than 30 cities booked. His MySpace Music page lists canceled
shows as TBD, indicating he’s seeking out other venues. In
Philadelphia, the first city in the tour, the concert was initially
canceled, but then the promoter and venue agreed to have the show
anyway.

To counter the tour, San Diego gay rights activist Syd Stevens
launched http://cancelbujubanton.wetpaint.com/
over the Labor Day weekend. The site not only gives updated
information about the tour and how to contact concert venues to
protest, it also aims to counter myths peddled by Banton's business
allies.

“I felt it was necessary to create a centralized information clearing
house on the web, like we did for the nationwide anti-Prop 8 Day of
Decision protests. I want to empower local activists to post their
letters, organize protests and boycotts and remain unified nationally.
Many people don’t know who Buju is. Those who do likely know about his
hate lyrics, but they don’t seem to know he was also involved in an
armed assault on six gay men in Jamaica.”

While a Jamaican court acquitted Banton of the attack, LGBT activists
have a great degree of skepticism about the kind of justice that gay
victims could get in a country notorious for its violent homophobia.
Gay sex is punishable in Jamaica by up to ten years in prison. When
Jamaica's foremost gay rights campaigner Brian Williamson was murdered
in a hate crime in 2004, a Human Rights Watch researcher who went to
the murder scene reported that a mob had gathered and was celebrating
the murder by chanting the chorus Banton's "Boom Bye Bye."

"Let's just say that the gay victims in Banton's 2006 trial probably
got as fair a shake as Emmett Till got in the old U.S. South," said
Andy Thayer, co-founder of Chicago's Gay Liberation Network
(www.GayLiberation.net).

Pro-gay protesters accuse Banton's publicists of trying to resuscitate
the tour by launching a disinformation campaign, falsely claiming that
the singer no longer performs his infamous "Boom Bye Bye" and hinting
that no longer harbors violent attitudes against gays. But as gay
rights campaigner Peter Tatchell notes, "Banton still performs this
song and it is still on sale via compilation albums. He is still
making money out of this murder music. He denies that the still
performs this song, but he does."

For several years Tatchell has been a leader in the struggle against
so-called "Murder Music." In conjunction with the Jamaica Forum for
Lesbians All-sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), that country's leading LGBT
group, Tatchell developed the "Reggae Compassionate Act," a pledge
whereby former performers of music that advocates violence against
gays could publicly disavow that music and pledge to no longer promote
violence. As evidence of Buju Banton's continuing duplicity, Tatchell
and other activists note that Banton signed the Compassionate Act in
2007, but then later claimed to have never signed it.

The http://cancelbujubanton.wetpaint.com/ website has a page for each
city on the tour with local contact information for the letter writing
and phone campaign. Local activists are encouraged to organize
protests and boycotts of venues that refuse to cancel. For more
information, contact sydstevens@gayliberation.net