Bahamas Brokeback ban sparks gay anger

The Bahamas has banned the gay cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain, triggering a new controversy over the island chain’s reputation for homophobia.

Gay rights groups and other critics called on the Plays and Films Control Board to think again, so far to no avail.

The award-winning 2005 film about two cowboys who fall in love got the thumbs down from the control board after a request for it to be banned from the Bahamas Christian Council.

The ban does not come as a surprise to Bahamians.

Last September, Miss Teen Bahamas was stripped of her title after she admitted to being a lesbian.

Four years ago, employees walked off the job at an isolated resort cay in the Bahamas after a shipload of gays arrived.

In 2004, Christian groups led a protest against the Norwegian Dawn cruise ship, which had docked with 1,600 gay passengers.

Rallied by the Save the Bahamas Initiative, which maintains that family values are undermined by gay couples, hundreds of demonstrators waved banners saying, “If you’re gay, stay away”.

The 2004 protest did not repeat the violence of 1998, when lesbian couples were chased off Nassau’s main street by furious protesters.