Being ourselves

Last night there was an item on the BBC 10:00 o’clock news that saddened me a lot at first. The more I think about it, though, the more it fills me with a sense of anger.

According to the story, the Ugandan government is considering introducing a death sentence for certain types of homosexual activity. Or maybe it will only be life imprisonment.

Of course … I know that the BBC is not always totally impartial. And I admit to having biases myself. So the story that I heard and the way that I interpreted it might not be the way that it actually is.

So … please read this as a comment on an attitude rather than an attack upon Uganda.

It was an update of the kind of information presented here.

The news item last night included extracts from an interview with a church man and scenes from a service that he seemed to be leading. I think it was the reporter John Simpson that said to the church leader that he had seldom experienced such hatred as was evident in the church service.

The badges that people wore expressed a vehement attitude against the act of sodomy.

A biblical perspective on this is given here. It’s not pleasant reading.

There is this whole thing about gay sexuality being “unnatural”.

I used to think that way myself.

These days I realise that people engage in many unnatural activities that some religious zealots are happy enough to engage in. To name a few:

• flying
• driving around in automobiles

Surely … if God had intended us to do these things we would be born with wings .. or wheels.

But if God had intended us not to do those things .,.. maybe we shouldn’t have brains either?

There was a time in my life when I had this belief that gay relationships must be about sexual depravity.

Amy Ray and Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls) helped me discover that gay and lesbian relationships … just like heterosexual relationships … can be about love.

In that discovery … fell away a whole lot of misconceptions and prejudices.

I know … some people would say that they have been replaced by a whole lot of other misconceptions and prejudices.

My daughter once shared with me that the thing that she finds hardest when talking with some lesbian friends is that way that some seem to think that every girl should be lesbian.

Of course … there seem to be plenty of heterosexual people that think that everyone should be heterosexual.

There are some Catholics that think everyone should be Catholic. Born again evangelicals that think everyone should be a born again evangelical. Muslims that think everyone should be Muslim.

Me … I’d be happy if everyone agreed with me.

Well no … not really. If everyone agreed with me I’d worry about it because I hate the idea of agreeing with everyone!

One day maybe we will learn to accept differences. I’m still learning and I know that I haven’t got there yet.

There is a French saying: Vive la difference! And I can happily say Amen to that.

Tonight, driving back from the office, I listened to a song by Julie Matthews. It’s called Take these Bones … there's some background info on the song here. It’s about the use of Comfort Women by the Japanese during the second World War.

For me it makes me wonder about the way that people have had a propensity to exploit each other.

There are some aspects of masculinity that are not at all nice things.

It’s strange how some people sometimes seem to be very anti twenty-first behaviour such as consensual homosexuality … pornography … prostitution … and yearn for the sublime past … days of legalised child labour … no votes for women … slaves.

I wonder if there is significance in the fact that it was a woman caught in the act of adultery that was brought before Jesus and not a man. It’s hard not to suspect that it’s because it was a society controlled by men that made sure it happened that way.

In a way I’m maybe a feminist … or at least a laissez-faire kind of feminist … and kinda glad that a part of me at least is a girl.

And yet … even more than that … within reason at any rate … I think it’s good to allow people to just be who they are and not force them to be who we want them to be.