Prime Minister Bruce Golding has announced that the island's buggery laws will not be repealed, despite enormous international pressure.

Egale Canada, a human rights group based in Toronto, Canada, recently announced its intention to call for a tourism boycott of the island, as well as a ban on the country's goods and services. The group issued a May 12 ultimatum on the Jamaican Government and threatened to make a public announcement five days later, encouraging the ban if its demands were not met.

The group appealed for the production of public service announcements denouncing homophobia/transphobia, called for a national homophobia/transphobia education campaign and lobbied for the abolition of the buggery law and any other law that stigmatises or criminalises consensual same-sex acts.

The Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) had expressed concern about the threats, and added that the Canadian market was a particularly viable one. Wayne Cummings, head of the JHTA, told THE STAR in an earlier interview, "They are a very forward-thinking, liberal country, and I'm sure there may be some credibility to the argument that they could affect us."

However, Prime Minister Golding, speaking at his post-budget press briefing at Jamaica House yesterday, said he has seen nothing yet to cause him to consider a review of the buggery laws. The prime minister, who has been accused of ignoring the issue by the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (JFLAG), said: "There is a road down which I'm not going to allow this country to go under my leadership."

He also voiced his opposition to same-sex marriages. "There are people who use the same philosophical kind of basis to seek, for example, legislative changes to redefine marriage so that marriage in law must mean something different from what marriage is now. Once we embark on that express way I am not certain at what point we are going to get off."