A 14 year old boy discovers that he is gay and reveals this subtly to his parents thinking they will help to guide him through this because after all his father is a preacher who has taught nothing but the love of Christ all of his life. Instead his parents become outraged and ashamed of him and cast him out of their home. The young man goes out into the world unprepared, naïve and vulnerable to every vice imaginable. He dies of HIV/AIDS at the age of 24, distraught, devastated, used up by the world after a life of prostitution and drugs from trying to survive in the streets. This story is not real but in a sense it is because there are thousands of young boys and girls in this same situation with no where to go and no one to turn to.
No religion or belief in this world is worth following if it requires you to turn your back on your loved ones , especially your own child. The love of Christ must not be much if it cannot be shared with those who are gay or with those who are of a different religion altogether. I realize that all Christians and religions don't practice this but unfortunately too many do and they place their laws above the value and the rights of human beings. This is one reason I strive daily to rise above religion and be spiritual because only in spirituality can humans just be humans without all the labels and prejudices that keeps the world divided.
When I was a member of the Black Nationalist movement it always struck me odd that we were fighting oppression but refused our fellow gay and lesbian brothers and sisters into various organizations. How can we fight for equality but yet at the same time deny certain ones access to our struggle? And why are we struggling just for one race when oppression only sees only one color and that is the color of money? It is no different than those professing the love of God rejecting those of another faith, were we not all made by the same creative force? Are we not all humans? Who has the right to decide what is of God and what is not if everything is supposed to be made by God? Where is the humanity of it all?
I hold out hope that one day in the distant future mankind will have evolved and moved beyond the dividing and discriminatory lines of race and religion. We will have world peace when we can look at each other as human beings instead of black, white, brown, yellow, straight, gay, Muslim or Christian. The fight for gay rights is a fight for human evolution. The fight for gay rights is a fight for world peace. As long as we deny others their rights we are helping oppression to win. It is imperative that those of us who are not gay join the battle because it helps to move us ALL that much closer to true humanity.
We are so divided and chopped up that we have become unrecognizable even to ourselves. Some march for world peace while others demonstrate to end the war in Iraq--yet none realize that the biggest war is here at home. I know this rant has been long and touched on everything but the kitchen sink with grammatical errors and just outright disregard for proper journalism. But sometimes there is the need to break free from the proper settings and engage the hypocrisy. We are divided even in our dissent and with each attack we unleash upon one another we help to uphold the dividing lines they have so carefully drawn. Where is the humanity? It's in the hands of all us if we just stick together.
