Gay On A Roll

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

A cleric once took me to task for not listening to the still, small voice that finds its way into everyone’s head telling me it is a sin to be gay. I told him the still small voice in my head was telling me something very different. He assured me I was listening to the Devil. It was down to me, he said, to ignore the Devil and hear God’s words. Did that mean God is a homophobe, I asked?  Had I not been told He created and loved all creatures great and small? The Devil’s work, the cleric insisted, is to undermine everything God says and does. We must all accept this sad fact, rise above it, and show the Devil we understand that God knows best...

Or?  (I was intrigued.) Or, the clerics told me gravely, I would never go to Heaven, but remain putty in the Devil’s hands forever.

It was the late 1950s. I was 14 years-old, already a closet gay lad, and never one to cave in to emotional blackmail. The cleric had spotted me leaving a well-known ‘cottage’ regularly visited by gay men. I guess he saw an opportunity to hone his sermonising skills on a captive audience.  Now, I had been wary of clerics for years and already turned away from religion. Nature seemed ready, willing and able to give me the reassurance I needed to find my own way in life, including sexuality. Even so, a schoolboy’s intuition warned me to engage the man rather than run off in case he saw it as his civic if not religious duty to turn me in to the police.  

It’s true my life has been a rollercoaster and no fun ride either for much of the time. But that’s no more down to nature or any God or Devil; that, my friends, is life.  I guess the trick is to ride out the bad times and let the good times roll...

Oh, and I met the same cleric again years later...in a gay bar.

GAY ON A ROLL

A still, small voice in my head

tells me each night and day

to walk tall, just go right ahead

and be good, be glad, be gay

A still, small voice in my heart

tells me it’s no sin (no way)

to share my body from the start

with a lover who, too, is gay

A still small voice in my soul

tells me not to be afraid

for eternity has but one goal,

to unite us all, not divide…

A still small voice is telling me

the world has a lot to learn

about our common humanity

for whom its candles burn

A still, small voice in my head

tells me each night and day

to walk tall, just go right ahead

and be good, be glad, be gay

Copyright R. N. Taber 2008