Taking Sides

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

In 2010, Serbian riot police fought running battles with hundreds of Far Right supporters who tried to disrupt a Gay Pride march in central Belgrade 

It would be four years before another Gay Pride march took place there, on which occasion water cannon, armoured vehicles and riot police blocked traffic on the route because of threats of attacks from extreme right wingers.  

In 2017, Ana Brnabic became the first woman to head the Serbian cabinet, she was also the first LGBT politician to hold such high office in the Balkans. She marched in the 2017 Pride parade in Belgrade, but progress remains poor; LGBT rights have not improved, new laws are still far from being adopted and there has been no fall in the number of attacks on gay people. 

Last year, saw thousands take part in Belgrade’s eighth Pride Parade; the walk passed the main government institutions, to which protesters have been addressing their demands for improved LGBT rights. Same-sex couples still cannot legally adopt. In early 2019, the Serbian Ministry of Health imposed a ban on those with a "history of homosexual relations during the last five years" from donating reproductive cells for artificial insemination or in vitro fertilisation. 

As I have said before, it is high time humankind began respecting other people’s differences instead of fighting over them; our differences do not make us different, only human. 

The world belongs to no one and everyone; it is up to us all to make of it what we will, despite any opposing life forces grounded in expressions of socio-cultural-religious dogma written on tablets of stone while it was still young, a diverse humankind still feeling its way through the subsequent maze of human nature. 

As I have also said many times and will go on saying…love doesn’t take sides, and neither should we.  Leave love and lovers alone…to enjoy what has to be the most wonderful feeling in the world. 

Q: What kind of bully tries to impose his or her prejudices on others?

A: The worst kind. 

TAKING SIDES

Love will embrace us, straight

or gay, and is always on our side;

no matter what some may do

or say, let live, and let love always

be our guide

It's not love would keep us apart

(love is always on our side)

but teachings (still) demanding

the heart go straight, reject LGBT

for a guide

Trust love to subdue winds of hate

(love is always on our side)

where cultural prejudices prevail,

hell bent on refusing Human Rights

for a guide

It isn’t love that would keep us all

from accessing a spiritual plane,

only those on Society's gravy train

fearful that we choose any free spirit

for a guide

Take heart, LGBT folks worldwide,

where time slow to take our side;

trust Truth to blow the bigots’ cover,

for its heartbeat having  Human Rights

for a guide

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2016

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]