Therapists and mental health experts have called for an end to discrimination against local gay people.

The Island's laws against gay sex must be scrapped, say the 13 members of the Bermuda Psychological Association.

Being gay is not a mental illness and homosexuals should be given basic human rights, they say.

BPA president Dr. Janet Kemp said yesterday: "Some of our members experience first-hand, from their clients, the intense pain that is experienced as a result of being a homosexual discriminated against in this community.

"Psychologists have a heightened sensitivity to the emotional effects of being a homosexual in Bermuda.'' The debate on the subject had become "intense'', she said. "It just reached a point where members felt that something had to be said.

"The BPA felt it had a responsibility to support a minority that is being discriminated against.

"We feel it's a civil rights issue, and at the same time it's a mental health issue.

"We found that statements had been made by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association, as long as 1973 and 1974, deleting homosexuality from their list of mental disorders.'' Other groups of local health workers should make similar stands, she said.

"Up to now I think the situation has been that there is very little public support from any large bodies.

"One or two church groups have come out with minimal support, but there hasn't really been a really strong public group.'' The BPA is calling on all health professionals to "take the lead in removing the connection of mental illness with homosexuality''.

In an agreed public statement, it says it "deplores the criminalisation of homosexual acts between consenting adults and urges that all possible initiatives be taken to decriminalise the practice of homosexuality.

"The BPA advocates that basic human rights, including freedom from discrimination, be guaranteed to homosexuals.'' Dr. Kemp stressed she was speaking as BPA president, not as an individual.