Editor's Note: Although GayToday headlined this demonstration on April 15, herewith, as an accompaniment to today's top story about Miami, is International Weekly News Correspondent Rex Wockner's timely account of the Nassau cruise incident and of its repercussions:

About 300 anti-gay protestors met a lesbian cruise when it stopped in Nassau, Bahamas, April 13.

The members of the group Save The Bahamas screamed insults at the women, most of whom avoided the demonstrators and quickly transferred to a smaller boat for a daytrip to a nearby island.

A few of the 800 passengers confronted the protesters, and two lesbians who kissed provoked the demonstrators to a near frenzy.

Save the Bahamas has demanded new laws banning gay sex, gay venues, gays in government and "open sodomites," and has declared May 8 a "National Day of Repentance."

Olivia Cruises President Judy Dlugacz was unfazed by the picket.

"The truth is this is just a small group making a lot of noise," she said. "The government of the Bahamas has always been very supportive."

Indeed, Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham says the nation "does not condemn or exclude persons who reveal themselves to be homosexual," and the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism apologized to Dlugacz for the incident.

In a televised speech, Ingraham elaborated: "Homosexuality is not a contagious disease and it is not a crime in the Bahamas. ... Whether a private sexual act between consenting adults is homosexual or heterosexual is not my business and I do not think it is your business either. We cannot, and ought not try to, dictate or to legislate morality. ... The hysteria being created by certain individuals against gay persons visiting The Bahamas, and who represent themselves as the leadership of the Christian Council, is becoming irresponsible. I believe that the hysteria is, as is usually the case with hysteria, unfounded. It is also un-Christian."

Homophobia began coming out of the closet in the Caribbean in January when the Cayman Islands denied docking privileges to a cruise ship carrying 900 U.S. gays, explaining, "We cannot count on this group to uphold the standards of appropriate behavior expected of visitors." The same cruise was due to stop in the Bahamas later in its voyage and protesters took to the streets of Nassau even as the ship was turned away by stormy weather.

Partially in response to the Cayman's incident, Britain ordered its Caribbean Dependent Territories to legalize gay sex so the United Kingdom will not be in violation of its international human-rights agreements. This sparked further outrage on Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks & Caicos Islands, including among some high-ranking officials.

Anguilla head minister Hubert Hughes informed London, "Even though we are dependent on British aid, we will not, definitely, compromise our principles when it comes to Christianity." Montserrat chief minister David Brandt said: "No politician could vote for such a law [allowing homosexuality]. There will be protests everywhere on this island and in other dependent territories [if Britain imposes the change]."

Rex Wockner's weekly international news reports dating back to May 1994 can be searched at http://www.wockner.com. The reports in their original form are archived at http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/world/wockner.html, which also archives Wockner's Quote Unquote column and some of his longer gay-press articles.