June is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Two Spirit Pride Month. The LGBTQ2S+ folks — I prefer to say gay — span the spectrum of humanity from extrovert to introvert, scientific, mathematical to artistic, energetic, and experimental, flamboyant to sedentary, coming in all races, colours, shapes, and sizes and making up approximately 10 per cent of the global population.
Gay people are the same as everybody else. It’s not about sex. It’s about who one chooses to love.
We all have a father and a mother. Dad has a Y chromosome and Mom has an X chromosome. And, when Dad’s and Mom’s chromosomes commingle, the genetic concoction creates an offspring.
The child is gifted with the hereditary characteristics from that couple and their parents before them —鈥�and on and on —鈥�so you can see how physical traits, sex and sexual proclivities mix and match and are handed down from generation to generation.
Let’s face it. There are degrees of male and female in all of us.
I know there’s the story of Adam and Eve in the Old Testament. And the Garden of Eden and how Eve was tempted by the snake, to seduce Adam. The stories in the Old Testament were interpreted by the scribes of Constantine I, who helped spread the Christian religion some 300 years from the death of Christ.
Those transcriptions, from scrolls and tablets, documented the history and beliefs of those ancient, biblical times and are the main source of the Bible known today.
The scriptures report the coming of a prophet named Jesus Christ. He never said anything about homosexuality. He did come up with the phrase, according to the New Testament, that “he who is without sin cast the first stone,” in defense of a woman accused of adultery. Other religions have similar teachings.
Love is not a sin. Jesus did not live his life according to the dictates of the Old Testament, but people who want to hate those different than themselves will quote from it, to defend bigotry.
I can quote from the New Testament. “Whoever does not love, does not know God, because God is love”.
And, what does not make any sense is why some people can call themselves Christian, following the teachings of Christ, and then condemn, demonize, beat up and even kill people who love persons of their own sex.
We humans are gay and straight and bisexual, asexual, transgender, two-spirited, he/him, her/she and whatever we see ourselves as being.
I love the phrase: We’re here, we’re Queer. Get over it. Because that includes us all.
