By Sharon Gordon
Johannesburg - Can you believe it’s June and that we’re almost through half the year.
At the moment I am helping with renovations and everyday flashes by, but the work moves at a snail’s pace. My patience as well as my budget is being tested to the max! The last thing I felt like doing today was thinking about sex advice and then I remembered that June is Pride Month.
I’m always reluctant to follow trends so talking about LGBTQ+ rights in Pride Month. It seems a bit of a cop out but it has to be done.
My family is like a Forrest Gump box of chocolates, or as I like to call it a Fifty Shades blended family. We have one of everything and a whole lot of crazy. Someone recently asked me if my family imbibed special water while we were growing up.
LGBTQ+- Pride Month is a month, typically June, dedicated to celebrating and commemorating lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and Queer pride especially after decades of persecution.
It seems apt to write about it this year in the light of a law that has just been passed in Uganda making gay sex a criminal offence punishable by death. Worse than that, an obligation has been placed on the family to report such behavior, which if not done also has draconian punishment. Imagine having to report your child for being who she is.
What flabbergasts me is that we all seem to be standing by allowing it to happen. The only political party who protested outside the Ugandan Embassy, when their president visited recently, was the EFF. Where was the liberal left?
I’ve been to Uganda and loved it so I am saddened by this law that will serve no purpose other than persecuting people for who they love. The law will not be able to change that.
One of my brood is gay.
As parents we knew very early on. He, however, fought it with all his might until his late 20s. He tried very hard to love a woman, he even lived with her and tried for years but it just wasn’t in his nature. Now he is partnered with a lovely man, and I hope they will be happy for many many years.
Would I have wanted him to be straight? The honest answer is yes. I think it’s much easier to be ‘normal’. Having to explain to the bigots and extended family has been uncomfortable at times. It would have been far easier for him to have a wife and 2.2 children. But we’re just not that kind of family.
I do get irritated that the whole gay/queer agenda gets thrust down our throat at every turn but then I try to remember that the ‘normal’ agenda has been pumping forever. I also have to admit that all types of public affection make me feel uncomfortable so I’m much happier when all my children merely hold hands and don’t kiss and cuddle in front of me.
Pride Month began after the Stonewall riots, a series of gay liberation protests in 1969, and has since spread outside of the United States. Modern-day Pride Month both honors the movement for LGBT rights and celebrates LGBT culture.
When I was in Sydney many years ago, I participated in the Pride March, I really do have the T-Shirt. At the time South Africa still had laws against it.
South Africa has many problems – I’m writing this with my generator running because I forgot to charge my laptop but our laws on equality and the right to love who we choose is not one of them.
The word 'pride' is an integral cultural concept within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex (LGBTQI) community, representing solidarity, collectivity, and identity as well as resistance to discrimination and violence.
Have I mentioned that my same child has been beaten up because of his sexual preferences.
I believe that bigotry and hate towards those who love differently to how you choose to love, is based on fear. If you are one of those who are afraid and want to hate, maybe have a conversation with someone who is different to you.
I am not for one moment saying that all gay people are wonderful and behave like solid citizens but hey I know more ‘normal’ despicable people.
Homosexuality has been with us for thousands of years. If you think back to the ancients’ men had sex with men for recreation and with women for procreation. Nobody made a big deal out of it. As cultures changed and religions got a foothold, we tried to eradicate alternative sexual preferences.
I think it’s safe to say that banning and legalizing against being gay has not worked and never will.
People love who they love and no matter how hard we judge and try to stamp our values on the world that will not change. Being gay is not a choice.
During the 1950s Dr Alfred Kinsey came up with the Kinsey scale.
The Kinsey scale, also called the Heterosexual–Homosexual Rating Scale, is used in research to describe a person's sexual orientation based on one's experience or response at a given time.
The scale typically ranges from 0, meaning exclusively heterosexual, to a 6, meaning exclusively homosexual. His hypothesis is that we are mostly somewhere in the middle. Which means we could fall in love with a man or a woman depending on their essence rather than their genitals.
This Pride Month I’d like us all to take a breath, practice tolerance, listen to our children, stop spinning out if they say they think they’re gay. They will be who they will be, and your anger and fear will make very little difference. It will only cause a family rift.
South Africa is known as the rainbow nation, so I find it apt that the international symbol of Pride is the rainbow flag. It is an iconic symbol recognized by people and communities worldwide.