http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
Now, as regular
readers will know only too well, I am not a religious person and subscribe to
no religion. Moreover, I turned my back on religion and put my faith in nature
long before I acknowledged, even to myself, that I am gay. Even so, I cannot believe
that any God would condemn a person for his or her sexuality or deny them entry
to any heaven; it goes against the very spirit
of religion and its humanity.
Take the
humanity out of religion and what you have left is not worth having.
Oh, I
know many religious minded people will disagree, especially those Christians
who choose to take their so-called humanity from the New Testament and their
justification of bigotry, intolerance and even hate from the Old Testament. I
do know my Bible and the God of the Old Testament bears little resemblance to the
God of whom Jesus Christ speaks. How some evangelical Christians can use a few
lines from Leviticus to justify their persecution of gay people is beyond me;
they are a disgrace to their religion.
Yes, I
have said all this before, and dare say will say it again. So why do I keep
repeating myself? It is because I see
red every time a gay person gets in touch to tell me how they feel tormented not
by their sexuality as such but by feeling must make choice between it and their
religion. Bollocks to that! The two are not incompatible as many, many religious minded people have shown
me over the years.
It is
sickening how many so-called ‘religious’ people, especially certain clerics,
among all the world religions, use religion as a weapon with which to threaten
people and scare them into denying their sexual identity.
I am so
glad I chose nature that gives me everything I was told as a child that
religion offers but which I never found.
I was raised a Christian, but at school Religious Education looked at
all the world religions. Religion offered me no peace of mind, no sanctuary from
the various psychological (never physical) torments I had to endure at home and
school. It was nature that sustained me during long, dark years as a troubled
teenager coming to terms with his sexuality. Imagine how much greater that
torment would have been had I been faced with being ostracised not only by the
less enlightened among the heterosexual majority, but also by my religion for
being gay. In that, though, I realise now I would have been mistaken.
It is not
religion that hounds gay people, only certain, ignorant people. Even so, I have
never been tempted back into any religious fold nor ever will be. Yet, I say again, thank goodness for those more
enlightened human beings not only among the heterosexual majority, but also among
those people who take their humanity from their religion; where the latter is
in no way compromised by acts of humanity that do not discriminate between
people for their colour, creed, sex or sexuality.
This poem
has not appeared on the blog since 2010 and is here today especially for a young
man who wrote anonymously to share his pain at being unable to decide whether
to be openly gay ‘for the sake of my sanity’ or to ‘keep quiet for the sake of my family,
friends, and religion.’
Are we really living in the 21st century?
GAY
PEOPLE GO TO HEAVEN TOO
A
mischievous spirit once asked to see
the
golden rule said to be set in stone
that gay
men and women should not be
admitted
to the ranks of heaven’s own
A
religious leader, just passed away,
retorted
it was plain commonsense;
others
agreed, faith must win the day
(besides,
gay people cause offence)
They all
began arguing at Heaven’s door,
gay
protest drowned out by the noise;
Whose
religion means to God the more?
True, no
easy choice…
No one
noticed for all the brave conjecture
that an
angel had opened the door,
but only
the gay crowd hastened to enter,
the rest
were too busy disputing the score
The
mischievous spirit, too, slipped back in,
though
not one pious soul saw it had gone;
that no
room for bigotry in heaven, a lesson
in Holy
Books some readers never learn
[From: On The Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]