The+Bahamas



The Bahamas are a series of islands that lie just below the Miami coast line. The Bahamas is often called "paradise on earth." The Bahamas are a large tourist attraction and trademarked by their white sand and clear water beaches. However, the Bahamas is not paradise for everyone.

A few weeks ago, I sat down with a close friend of mine, Bahama native and star athlete, Courtney. Courtney graduated at the top of our class at the Lincoln University in the School of Arts ad Humanities. I began by asking her about her culture. She explained that the Bahamian culture was strongly faith based with a large Christian following. She grew up going to church every Sunday, faithfully. As Courtney began to mature, she realized she was slightly different from the rest of her family. She began to take a great appreciation for women. Meanwhile, as a child, she saw one of her aunts be ostracized from their family after revealing her sexual orientation. From that point forward, Courtney made it her mission to live in the united states. After being in college for two years, she called her mother and explained that she identifies as bisexual. Her mother began to scream and shout, "you need to come home it's america making you 'that way'." Courtney, too, was ostracized from her family. No one would support her. No one would speak to her, almost as if she was all alone. Courtney told me when she was a kid, she remembered reading about a woman who had been stoned and beaten to death because she was a lesbian. LGBTQ life is not accepted here. Just like many of the other islands in the Caribbean, it's something that is not spoken about, but a known fact. It has now been written into law that marriage is between a man and woman, following the bible, but homosexual activity is not illegal.

Below is a small article written in 2004 by Bert Wilkerson about some of the gay cruise ships that were supposed to land in the Bahamas. Check it out.