Carnival’s LGBTQ+ Image Is Putting Lives at Risk

Carnival’s Pride Promise Is a Dangerous Illusion

By Broken Paradise
For RevealThem.org – July 2025

When Carnival Cruise Line launched its exclusive Celebration Key port in the Bahamas on July 19, 2025, it proudly marketed the $600 million project as a bold new step in inclusive tourism. Rainbow visuals. Pride cocktail nights. Hashtag-ready slogans.

But there’s a troubling contradiction at sea. Carnival isn’t just docking at the Bahamas — a country with a well-documented history of systemic homophobia, deportations, and violations of queer rights. It also sails regularly to Jamaica, another Caribbean nation where LGBTQ+ people face widespread discrimination, violence, and criminalization.

So here’s the question:

🏳️‍🌈 Can a company claim LGBTQ+ allyship while profiting from ports that criminalize queerness?

🇯🇲 Jamaica: Paradise with a Price

Jamaica is internationally known for its beaches, reggae rhythms — and its brutal record on LGBTQ+ rights.

According to Human Rights Watch, homosexuality remains criminalized under the colonial-era “buggery law”, punishable by up to 10 years in prison with hard labor. Even more alarming:

• Queer Jamaicans report police harassment, mob violence, and death threats.
• Trans women face extreme levels of violence, often with no protection from authorities.
• Public figures and musicians continue to glorify anti-gay violence in lyrics and speeches.
• LGBTQ+ youth are disproportionately affected by homelessness and suicide.

The U.S. State Department, UK’s Foreign Office, and Canadian Global Affairs Canada all regularly issue safety warnings for LGBTQ+ travelers visiting Jamaica.

And yet, Carnival sails thousands of guests to these shores each month, disembarking into a country where locals can be beaten or jailed for the same identities Carnival celebrates on board.

🇧🇸 Bahamas: A Mirror Image

The contrast is no better in the Bahamas — the location of Carnival’s “inclusive” Celebration Key.

Despite its resort sheen, the Bahamas:

• Do not recognize same-sex marriage
• Offer no legal protections against discrimination
• Have deported or detained queer travelers in recent years
• Maintain a climate of fear among local LGBTQ+ residents, many of whom live closeted

RevealThem.org has received firsthand accounts of wrongful arrests, homophobic remarks by immigration officers, and institutional abuse — including detainment of same-sex parents separated from their child.

🌈 “They say we’re welcome, but the law says we’re criminals,” one Bahamian activist told us.

🎭 Corporate Pride vs. Caribbean Reality

Carnival Cruise Line features:

• Pride-themed merchandise
• LGBTQ+ meetups onboard
• “Allyship” statements on social media during Pride Month

But behind the confetti is a marketing machine that funnels tourist dollars into countries where LGBTQ+ people are second-class citizens — or worse.

According to industry estimates, Carnival brings millions of U.S. dollars each year into the Bahamas and Jamaica through port fees, tourism partnerships, and excursions.

So while Carnival celebrates equality at sea, it helps bankroll injustice on land.

⚖️ Accountability or Hypocrisy?

You can’t have it both ways.

• You can’t host a drag show in the evening — and send passengers to countries where drag performers would be arrested or attacked.
• You can’t post rainbow flags in June — and profit from ports that jail LGBTQ+ locals in July.
• You can’t claim allyship — while ignoring the lived terror of queer people in your destinations.

🧭 Tourism is political. Silence is complicity.

💥 What Needs to Change?

Carnival (and the cruise industry at large) must:

1. Acknowledge the risks faced by LGBTQ+ locals in Jamaica and the Bahamas.
2. Push governments to decriminalize same-sex relations and enact anti-discrimination laws.
3. Stop funding ports that criminalize queer identities — or at least disclose risks to passengers.
4. Invest in local LGBTQ+ organizations, not just corporate pride campaigns.

Until then, every rainbow onboard is a corporate costume — not a sign of progress.

🚫 Don’t Sail with Silence

LGBTQ+ travelers, allies, and advocates:
If your identity matters, so does your destination. Ask where your tourism dollars are going. Demand better.

Join the call:
👉 revealthem.org/boycott
🛑 Don’t Sail With Silence.