One for the Family Album

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

Regular readers will know that I am pantheist in so far as I see God as nature rather than its creator.

Now, being gay is not a choice, but who we are; the only choice lies in whether or not we choose to be ourselves; rarely an easy choice given the persistent stereotyping and other fake news that has plagued the whole LGBT community for centuries.

Albert Einstein expressed strong views about prejudice, among them:

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions. 

 - Albert Einstein, Essay to Leo Baeck, 1953

ONE FOR FAMILY ALBUM

I am as I am,
although world religions 
see fit to take issue,
yet mind-body-spirit trusts itself,
won’t concede defeat,
and some would say a hypocrite,
mind-body-spirit 
quite simply in denial for refusing
it's misguided

I am as I am,
a sense of spirituality as much part
of me as any other
for its embracing that whole of me, 
can see no wrong
in asking of others no more or less
than asked of me
in simply being human, warts ‘n’ all
not driven into freefall 

What’s wrong
in nursing opinions with which some
may well not agree,
given freedom-of-thought at the heart
of human nature
for its needing to incite critical debate
(all-comers welcome)
to have an agreeing-to-differ mentality
driving human society? 

I am gay, as blessed a Child of  Nature
as any other

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2021

[Note: Apologies for the error in the first stanza of the original version of this poem, now corrected on both poetry blogs.; this post-poem also appears on my gay-interest poetry blog.] RT