Free Zones ~ The Back-lash Continues

LGBTQ

Write, be methodical, escape to where there there is peace … and keep alive or learn afresh the old skills

I

MANY are LGBTQ+.

Many, many more are not.

Whenever I think things are getting better for our communities, for our people - here and worldwide - I'm quickly disproved and brought back down to earth with a bump.

I dislike all religiosity.

Yet, I am a Christian with a very deep and abiding faith, and I believe that, on religious matters, the ecumenical route is the way forward, an outside-the-box Christian.

II

Being inside the box requires that I live in a state of perpetual guilt. I’m told that I am born in sin. At school, they were not very good at explaining this concept because they never bothered to explain the difference between their concept and the worldly one-night stand that went wrong.

Before I even started, from the cradle I am guilty. I’m inherently bad and in need of saving. Furthermore, this saving is confined to the narrowest gap between two buildings, if I can put it like that.

I booted that out a long time ago when I also booted out the creationist theory that the universe is no more than about eight thousand years old. But not before a great deal of damage had been caused.

So if, perchance, reading that has made one feel one is staring devils and demons in the face, pass on by.

If not, hang around.

Now, all that does not mean that I give carte blanche.

III

For peace of mind, I need to distinguish between religion and faith, between religiosity - i.e. when I worship the practice rather than the principle. To worship religious practice is like looking through the wrong end of the telescope. and faith.

Perspective

To worship religious practice is like looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

Nothing can replace intimacy in a book. Read, learn, inwardly digest … be wide-minded … do not be silenced … stand up for right, shine the searchlight beam on what is wrong …

When two religions ... in this case Christianity and Islam ... arrive at the same conclusion ... that homosexuality is a sin ... then go back to the sacred texts. I'm not interested in hearing about Leviticus; I'm not interested in hearing about the inspiring letters written by the Apostles ... what I am interested in, is being shown where Christ ~ the Messiah ~ I AM ~ Jesus ~ Yeshua ~ call Him what you like, actually singles out homosexuality in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

I'm 67 ... I've spent a lifetime reading various bible translations and other texts; I've read most versions including that meandering amplified translation - heavy going for anyone, ‘though quite uplifting - and still, That Man never singles homosexuality out. He’s plenty to say if we are to believe the scribes, the apostles and so forth, on the subject of fornication and adultery; yet, curiously, “the abomination” never even enters the back end of a sentence.

I must be missing something.

IV

Let us all - all of us who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or Queer - be uplifted and stand united.

V

We saw what happened when a People was ruthlessly attacked with the intent to exterminate them. We see Israel today very determined not to be caught out again, and I am not condoning here some of the more strident policies of Israel.

I am as passionate about Palestine as I am about Israel.

And for those Christians and Messianic Jews and Orthodox Jews who argue a return to biblical Israel … Really?

You no longer have a claim to the West Bank - biblical Judea and Samaria. That has ended.

That is ancient history. That would be like Denmark, Norway and Sweden suddenly demanding that the lands they conquered in Britain must now return to them.

This is the 21st Century!

VI

Give to the Palestinians what is rightfully theirs, and to the Palestinians, stop making these declarations that you will slaughter every Semitic person and drive them into the sea!

There is another group of people, equally as important as all of you put together, and, likewise of no threat to the life and peace of the world.

And that is why I published the book Being Gay Being Bi Whatever in 2013.

Boy oh, boy did I get a ticking off.

Too many gay poems in the previous anthologies. So I tackled them head-on, and I know I upset a lot of people - the ones who keep reminding all and sundry narrow is the path … but wide is the road to eternal … (the end just bounces off my back receding into the distance) when I gave it its - what one friend called - a double-decker bus title …. “it makes you look twice, Ken!” Oh right...! I had a wry smile at one well-intentioned christian’s suggestion … I think perhaps if you remove the middle words and just call it Being Whatever it’ll be fine.

VII

Thanks. The title stays.

I will shine a ‘searchlight beam’ on those who attack us. I use that term deliberately.

My uncles served in the RAF and both were killed over Germany. Many of my friends outside FB are in Germany and Austria. I'm very proud of that, and I know that they would be proud, too. We've built the bridges - and still are building - of Mitgefühl, Barmherzigkeit und Versöhnung - Mercy, Compassion and Reconciliation.

The searchlight?

So bright, that it not only lit up the outline of the aircraft, it flooded the interior with white blinding light that disorientated the crews. We did the same here to German Crews. It was total war.

Let us never shy away from shining the searchlight onto wrongdoing or, in the case of this dispatch, on religious malpractice leading to people making very wrong assumptions.

Mrs Florence Emily Bette Webb 1943

When evil strikes, when the bombs fall, when terrorists hit the innocent with IEDs, suicide devices, or run amok with machetes … defy them … uphold the rule of law, just as we did in an age before you … and shine the searchlight beam upon them and bring them to the floor of the Court of Human Rights … this is a command, an injunction, not some wishful thinking … we gave yesterday so that you have today. Live and LET live!

This portrait is of the author’s aunt in 1943. This image, is her way, at the height of the Blitz, of hitting back at a megalomaniac. Freedom WILL have the last word and WILL have the victory!

27 August 2020
All Rights Reserved

© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022