On the Battlefields of Love

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Wherever we are in the world, boy or girl, man or woman, and whatever our sexuality, it is a basic human right to fall in love and (hopefully) be loved in return.

Love, though, takes all shapes and forms, and it has to be said that lovers do not have a monopoly.

At the same time, who can deny that, for lovers, it is a way of life, and only a narrow-minded bigot would express such a denial regarding gay people?

Life is often a mental as well as a physical battlefield, but to love goes the last word and final victory, never judging and never, but never discriminating along lines of colour, creed, sex or sexuality. 

Sexuality has to be in the genes; there is no other explanation for gay people across the world, from all manner of socio-cultural-religious backgrounds. 

So why do so many people continue to resist the notion that there is nothing 'unnatural' about being gay?  In my experience, the heterosexual majority is very defensive when challenged n the subject of homophobia, it disturbs their comfort zone. Invariably, they resort to that old stand-by 'it is what it is' and we must make of that what we will.

I am reminded of a comment by physicist Stephen Hawking: 'The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.'

Whatever, thank goodness love, at least, doesn't give a damn about sexuality.

 ON THE BATTLEFIELDS OF LOVE 

There is a gene amongst others

that scares fathers, concerns mothers,

while (still) gay people everywhere

crying out for them in desperation to care,
cave in to love

Whatever ethnicity, gender, creed,

it is on love that families should feed;

where faith a mask for hypocrisy,

religions often found guilty. pitting dogma
against humanity

Gay people have every right to be

free of cultural prejudices and bigotry

making us feel we must defend

our sexuality to the bitter end, its casualties
notwithstanding

It’s good to be open, honest, true,

but what are gay people supposed to do

when love for family put on the line,

urging us to redefine ourselves by imposing
impossible choices?

If faith in a God fills heart and soul,

how can gay people expect to reconcile

teachings of universal love and peace

with examples holy leaders choose to enforce
this or that dogma?

We can but follow love’s golden rules,

(if made to carry its burdens like mules)

in a common humanity put our trust,

shake off its nemeses like dust, human nature
its own worst enemy

Copyright R N Taber,  2010, rev. 2019

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in On the Battlefields of Love (without an alternative title) by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]