Good Heavens

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Today's poem and much of the same prologue appears in my gay-interest blog archives for January 2015. [Blog archives are listed on the right hand side of any blog page.]

It always upsets me whenever anyone gets in touch to say they are being bullied at school or at work, hounded at home or in the street or whatever, wherever, because certain people know or suspect they are gay. Homophobia is no more acceptable than racism or any other kind of prejudice; we are all human beings, part of the same common humanity, and deserve better.

Being treated for prostate cancer, it doesn’t do much for my self-confidence either when certain well-meaning people suggest I should amend my take on religion ‘in case things don’t work out.’ Even so, as regular readers may well be weary of hearing me say, I am content to put my trust in nature.

There is no excuse for homophobic or any other prejudicial behaviour towards vulnerable people unless it is sheer ignorance. Originally, I posted today’s entry on both my general and gay-interest blogs in the hope that the more vulnerable gay reader may take heart and the less enlightened heterosexual (regardless of sex, race, creed, age or position in society) take note.

There are many facets to identity of which sexual identity is but one. As I have often said, it is the whole that counts.

Regardless of social, religious, cultural or, yes, sexual identity, we should be judged, (by those who set themselves up to judge) for our approach to life and people; kindness, respect, a capacity for compassion and other forces for good should not be undermined, as they often are, by our mistakes and failures. Most if not all of us make mistakes. Most if not all of us fail at something sometimes. Worse, we may fail other people, however unintentionally. We might think we have failed ourselves, and that may be true although I suspect we are often too hard on ourselves. Life is tough, and few of us survive emotionally and/or psychologically and/or physically unscathed by all it throws at us from time to time. Human nature is a complex organism; a living organism, not a machine.

The natural world, too, is a complex organism and one to which we can all relate and are related. So I have little time for people whose socio-cultural-religious bigotry insists that Earth Mother (God by any other name?) would condemn anyone for their sexuality alone. Certainly, none of the Holy Books - including the Quran - imply this is the case. Oh, ‘devout’ Christians can quote Leviticus at us, but that is Old Testament and it is the New Testament that counts if you are a follower of Christ. Besides, relatively few Jewish people are homophobic and Judaism has its roots in the Old Testament. [I will never understand why so many religious-minded people are homophobic when the Holy Books they claim to revere are not.]

Whatever a person's religion, no one will ever convince me that any God worth believing in would see a person's sexuality as any kind of a barrier to His (or Her) loving them. Religions appear to agree that God is Love. Why then should any God create any world - human or natural - where the kind of discriminatory attitudes perpetuated by certain people are encouraged by the very societies in which they live?  It makes no sense, which is precisely why I subscribe to no religion and choose instead to take the sense of spirituality that inspires me from nature, free as it is of dogma.

If nature does not have a problem with LGBT relationships (there is evidence of this in the natural world) or other aspects of a person that - according to some so-called 'norm' - make him or her 'different' from the rest of humankind, what gives human nature the right to set itself up as judge and jury? How does it square, too, with believing in a God of Love according to any of the world religions?

GOOD HEAVENS 

Godly people have asked me

why I ‘flaunt’ my sexuality;

I say, flaunt it I never would,

but (surely?) openness has to be

a force for good

Godly people have despised me

for ‘soiling’ my identity,

asking why I feel no shame

for staining my natural integrity

with a ‘dirty’ name

I tell these godly people I’d rather

tell the truth than be a liar

to please to them and their kind,

suggest they look within themselves

for other axes to grind

Godly people have maligned me

for defending my sexuality,

as anyone with integrity would

when openly accused of resisting

a force for good

Godly people have pitied my soul,

for placing it in such peril

by a penchant for mortal sin

that would see me burn in Hell,

disowned by Heaven

I tell these godly people, I’d rather

be left to die on barbed wire

than toe this Faith's line or that

although I remain in the line of fire

for refusing to submit

Such godly people, they walk away,

despairing of anyone gay,

unable to accept the likes of me

are proud to hear Earth Mother say,

‘Child of mine, go free.'

Ah, but even godliness can deceive

(some wear it on their sleeve)

by denying sex, colour, sexuality,

much of a muchness rites of passage

defining all humanity

However and wherever the inner eye

sees God (or not) who can deny

spirituality but suffers, oh, so terribly

from leadership skills resolved to rely

on prayer and hypocrisy?

Faith takes many shapes and forms,

transcending everyday norms;

a key to open up hearts and minds,

confident in how it performs to carry on

asking the right questions

Could it be their guarded hostility,

(the godly people who tell me

I’m a poor ‘sinner’ for being gay)

derives from a repressed humanity

demanding a right of way?

Besides, no religion is fit for purpose

that would deny gay people a voice

 .

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011