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ARTS AND CULTURE

Best of 2011: Religion's homophobic scratch and sniff

  • 03 January 2012

Attracted

Attracted to the other and/or drawn to the same,we all bathe in the splendour of allure.Reverse polarity provides an alien to abjure.A goat to scape. Foes to shame and blame.

As pharisaical ghouls lobby for the status quo,the legal 'bann' of variated love,cynics note the dessicated unions blessed above:divorce could prove a universal blow.

Tendrils of distaste and hate recoil in a tiff,fear and loathing rile at others' joy.Witness demagoguery's old yet newly minted toy:religion's homophobic scratch and sniff.

Vile denunciations and allegations waft,across the vast expanse of space and time.Flatulent Dutch ovens of bigotry aloft fly,as adult, equal love's tagged 'sin', not raft

to finding solace, as surely as the Madeseeks the Maker's consoling deeps.Suicide and ostracism, hidden, slowly creeps;onwards upwards deathwards. Passions fade.

Semantics fly, with rites and rights a puritan's lament.Literal application to words rimed with years;Words that wedge the other as the focal point of fears.Church, mosque or temple: bodies exercise their bent

to non-hetero matrimonials defy.Sordid 'sacred' words lose lustre in the Light.Condemning comes not from Love, but spite.What weight of misery typifies the cry

of adults drawn to other adult lives?What hideous hypocrites act to censure Love?Where can Grace dwell? Where is God? In? Above?Absent when loathing and rank hatred thrives?

To thwart the needs and sorrowful dreamsof frail and potent figures, near and far,the sexual Luddites wreck the engines of reform to marthe would-be dignity and fragile schemes

of those who would be openly joined in viewof human, God and faith-besmirching church.These haters soldier on, blindly fouling the searchfor 'home' and kindling hearth. They must construe

a valley of dry-boned hopes. Make of love a towerof denial. Their 'keepings off' round robin gameof demonising, skewering pain; can we namelatency, jealousy, envy, misuse of power?

Who and how an adult loves — who another gainsas adult lover, soulgazer, oasis, keenest friend —leaves no grounds for judgment or fear. In the endGod wipes away their tears. Stills their pains. 

Barry Gittins is a Melbourne writer.