Ghosts, Touching Base

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

A Mormon missionary once told me I should never feel ashamed of being gay because it is a mental illness. “You’re no freak,” he insisted.  (How kind of him!)  “Think of it like this. The mentally ill cannot help themselves so they need to accept help to get better. There is no shame in that, and we can help you.” (The colleague accompanying him smiling and nodding encouragingly). When I asked him if he was qualified to help mentally ill people, he insisted that was not the point. “The point is…” he started to say.

“The point is,” I interrupted, “that people like you have to believe people like me are mentally ill because you can’t bear the thought that being gay is every bit as human as being straight. As a human being yourself that would put us on an equal footing, something no bigoted ego dares contemplate for fear of being exposed as a freak.”

Both men looked hurt and very uncomfortable. I left them to their thoughts.

Sadly, I have had many such conversations with people from all walks of life who always insist they are not homophobic and are perfectly willing to tolerate gay people.

Well, I have news for them. We LGBT folks deserve better than to be ‘tolerated’.

How I hate that word, tolerate… don’t you?

GHOSTS, TOUCHING BASE

Ghosts, in time and space,

mingling with crowds as blind

to their living presence

as parents to a gay son’s pain

in being made feel

a blot on the family landscape

for failing to live up

to the quintessential macho image

toeing the family line

Ghosts, in time and space,

whispering in cloth ears as deaf

to every word

as parents to a gay son’s pleas

to live and let live

without cocking an ear instead

to gossips and bigots

dead set on prescribing moral highs

to kill off home truths

Ghosts, in time and space,

straight out of the pages of history,

rummaging sound minds

for intelligent reasons why bigotry

has infiltrated religions

where peace and love have become

bywords for hypocrisy,

cherry picking life force principles

to accommodate dogma

Ghosts, in time and space,

whispering encouragement in my ear,

urging me not to care

what some people might have to say

about being gay, and less

of a person for that, given centuries

passing on inspiring tales

of LGBT folks around the world rising

above its prejudices

Ghosts, in time and space,

defying parameters of human nature,

the better to support

those whose natural instinctiveness

for love and peace remains

barracked by a world refusing to be honest

about any of this, convinced

by socio- cultural-religious dogma

that ‘real’ men never kiss

Copyright R. N. Taber 2018, 2020

[Note: An earlier version of this poem has appeared on the blog before under a different title; regular readers will be familiar with my revising earlier poems from time to time.]