Religious homophobic hypocrisy

Jamille Broome writes a weekly column for the Newsday. 

In what seems to be a hate crime against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, a transgender woman was murdered in Port of Spain last week, and the response from many on social media was exactly what one would expect from a homophobic society.

Not surprisingly, the majority of hateful comments that were thankful for her death came from Bible-quoting bigots who enthusiastically and proudly rattled-off scriptures: Deuteronomy 22:5, Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13. This, ladies and gentlemen, is modern-day Christianity in all its glory; extremist intolerance that explains why the dictionary definitions of religion and cult are synonymous.

Coincidentally, at the same time that Trinidad and Tobago was having this discussion, Australia became the 26th country to legalise same-sex marriages, and the Supreme Court of the United States was hearing arguments on gay rights versus religious beliefs in the case involving a Colorado baker’s refusal to bake a cake for a gay couple. In all three scenarios, and as always, opposition to gay rights generally come from people who call themselves Christians. Sadly, these people who strive to be Christ-like ignore all the other biblical scriptures like 1 John 4:7 that speak about love, in order to select the most convenient phrases to justify their vile animosity for other human beings. It cements the reality that religion is the most dangerous and hateful man-made creation, whether it’s ISIS using the Koran to murder millions of innocent people or Christians using the Bible to spew ignorant hatred at people living their own lives.

Forget about religious beliefs for a second; how can any rational human being celebrate the murder of a seemingly innocent person based simply on the fact that she practised an alternative lifestyle. How does one oppose abortions yet applaud the murder of another human being? How can any person attempting to emulate Jesus not understand that type of celebration is more evil than the act itself.

How can a business open to the public refuse to bake a cake only after they became aware that the cake was for a gay wedding? Would this be any different if the bakery refused to bake a cake for an interracial or interfaith couple because the Bible speaks about not being unequally yoked in 2 Corinthians 6:14? Are the floodgates for using religious freedoms to discriminate now open? Can you even imagine a student at any of TT’s faith-based schools being expelled for coming out as gay? Or a lecturer refusing to teach LGBTs?

Hypocrisy runs wild in religious circles, especially when it comes to hating members of the LGBT community when their own religious books preach love. And besides the literal meaning of abstract religious scriptures, some religious bigots believe that recognising the rights of LGBTs will lead to other taboo behaviour like paedophilia, which for years has been a talking point for America’s very religious conservatives in the Republican party. But in true hypocritical form, that same Republican party currently supports the senatorial election of a married heterosexual Christian man with mounting evidence pointing to paedophilic tendencies on his part.

Additionally, and quite interestingly, some who openly declare their hatred for LGBTs are themselves closet homosexuals living an entirely separate life until they go home to their wives and children. Ironically–using the Grand Old Party as an example again–it was their own Oklahoma Senator, Ralph Shortey, who, despite being married with four daughters, campaigned on a “family values” platform and voted against every bill designed to give rights to LGBTs, was caught in a hotel room with an underage boy in March this year. American examples used, but the undercover hypocrisy in TT is rampant with several accounts of gay prostitution and homosexuality among married men and our country’s powerful elite.

I am not writing this column to demonstrate some sort of sanctimonious superiority because I am not going to pretend that I was not once the same religious bigot I now despise, but luckily, I was able to experience a world outside of TT where every human being has rights, regardless of their sexual orientation or religious belief. LGBTs are not second-class citizens, and if one’s opinion is that they will end up in hell, isn’t that on them and ultimately their decision to make?

In spite of it all, I still pray that close-minded religious bigots who “bun out chi chi man,” in God’s name make their way to heaven because I am sure that nothing could be more pleasing to Him than hearing His children sing “boom bye bye inna batty boy head, rude boy nah promote no nasty man, dem haffi dead.”

Jamille85@msn.com