I used to listen to secular music a lot and one line from the 'Fugees' track has stuck in my memory like a brain cell, always ready to pop up when issues that bother on race, sexual orientation, equal rights come up. It says, 'Before black, I am first human'.
I have always been sensitive to perceived oppression and segregation. Maybe it is the result of growing up in a polygamous home, I really do not know and I will leave that to the 'psychos' to analyse. Even as a Christian, I have come to a stage in life where one must accept certain realities that have lived with us since time became measurable. One of these realities is that before anything else, before our gender, before the colour of our skin, before our race, before our faith, before religion, before sexual orientation, we are first HUMANS.
We cannot enjoy peace and harmony until we accept this reality in totality. Yes, some of us do accept that we are first humans, but see what happened to the world when some few people decided they were 'higher' or 'better' than other humans. We must accept equality for the right balance to exist in the world we live in today. My sexual orientation does not make me less of a human being or a better human being. If I have flaws, is it not a pointer that all humans are subject to flaws of one nature or the other. We have cross-dressers and transversites, no? We have people who derive pleasure from seeing other people suffer and die, no? We train people to become Psychiatrists, Pyschoanalysts and Psychologists and they in turn try to explain these flaws (within the limited scope of their knowledge) and try to recommend solutions and/or cures.
So, is it right to ban homosexuality and lesbianism? Yes. Should people with this challenge be castigated? No. There are cases of people who became straight after they realised that being gay was a flawed way of thinking and through therapy were able to correct this mentality. No one is born gay; it does not come with your DNA. Forget all the scientific babbles and mis-explanations, you are born straight as straight as can be. What gay people need is not segregation but loving correction just as you would correct a child that goes astray. Setting punitive measures for gay people is counter-productive in my honest opinion because the impression is that they are hated. What we are likely to get will be a revolt against the system and people living secret lives. The change we seek cannot be achieved by casting these people out. Let's start by treating them first as HUMANS, teach them to accept their thinking is flawed and through therapy, correct those that are willing to be corrected and those cases that prove stubborn or unwilling to change can then be made to face the law...but we as a people must first reach out in love.
