The American Rainbow…and my prerogative!

Jul 05, 2015 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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By Dennis Nichols

June 26th 2015 was undeniably a truly happy day for a lot of Americans, and for some Guyanese who are just itching to catch a cold after the US Supreme Court sneezed (and by legal extension all of America) in endorsing the idea of same-sex marriage in the land of the free. The expelled droplets dispersed from Washington DC, spread and settled, from Alaska to Hawaii. The proverbial winds of change will likely blow them in a huge rainbow curve gaily stretching halfway around the world – in both directions.
Here’s a fun fact – beautiful promise or brazen premonition? As President Obama left Jamaica in April of this year, he stood and waved from Air Force One at the Norman Manley Airport. A photograph was snapped. Appearing directly behind him, a strikingly clear rainbow arched and seemed to project in near-perfect alignment with his waving hand, almost as if he was casting a benediction over the allegedly homophobic island-nation. It is not the kind of image and insinuation that many Jamaicans would want to dwell on. Gay Jamaicans may be smiling though.
Many people have struggled to understand homosexuality, but simply do not. Some are honestly confused about the notion yet sympathetic towards those discriminated against because of that particular lifestyle. I find myself somewhere amongst that lot. We are asked to take a stand for or against the issue but find it’s not an easy decision, especially since in the tortuous labyrinth of human sexuality, very little is black and white; in fact there may be more than the touted ‘50 shades of grey’ in it as explored in the recent movie with that title.

It is said that God made Man, and woman. He made them to be physically, emotionally, even spiritually attractive to each other, with parts anatomically designed and ‘fittingly’ set for love, copulation and reproduction. The basic models haven’t really changed over the millennia, despite attempts to modify their structure and function. Other parts of the human anatomy assist in the process, and may have some effect on the degree of emotion that accompanies it, but the underlying act remains the same. We call it sex, and it’s a huge deal.
But God must have done some other things to make sex and sexuality not only a huge deal, but also a huge mystery. He gave us hormones and choice, and a bunch of variables that have muddied the waters of sexual identity. Men behave like women and women like men, and do, or try to do what women and men normally did with each other, only now with their own kind. Sounds confusing, but it’s been around a long time; almost since creation. We now call these expressions gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, metrosexual, androgynous etc…
Like so many children growing up in Guyana in the sixties and early seventies I became acquainted with the term ‘anti-man’. At age eight or nine I wasn’t sure what it meant exactly, but I knew that it suggested a male who was not a real man; who acted like a woman, maybe for fun? Likewise there were women who acted like men and were sexually aggressive. Such a female was called ‘cocks’n’ or ‘salamite’, the latter probably a corruption of the word sodomite, though I can’t figure how that could have been construed. Nevertheless these seemed to be people who simply amused us, and were not to be despised, harmed, or discriminated against, at least not in my childish mind.
There were famous (or notorious) ones, supposedly, like Bundarie and Barney, and a few lesser-known characters; not many. We also had sissy boys and tomboy girls. Being a shy, timid child, I was called sissy a few times. These things meant little to me, as I was growing up with a healthy attraction to girls, and an easy tolerance for people who didn’t look or act like me. I nevertheless understood, or thought I did, that God had created Eve for Adam, that marriage was between a man and a woman, and that a child was either a boy or a girl. I therefore tend to be somewhat confused by modern notions of sexuality.
Because of the way I was raised, with certain Christian principles, and because of my own experiences, I have some clear-cut ideas and feelings about certain homosexual acts, particularly among males. For example I think anal sex between two males, consensual or not, is unnatural and repulsive since as far as I’m aware, neither the anus nor the rectum was made to accommodate a penis. (Yet it somehow seems more acceptable to straight men when two women are similarly engaged)  But in the grey area of sexual orientation, I am much less inclined to have strong opinions.
For example I guess it’s quite possible for a child to be born with the exterior identifying organs of one sex, but also with certain hormones and brain chemicals which predispose him/her to think, feel and act like a member of the opposite sex, as perceived generally by society. And I think it’s equally likely that some people change their sexual orientation through choice, experience, experimentation, or some other factor obscured from those less sympathetic to their ‘plight’ – the old nature/nurture conundrum.
In Europe, North America, and in several countries around the world, homosexuals and transgenders have made massive gains in the way they are perceived and treated, for example by protection through nondiscrimination and family recognition legislation; also from violence and homophobia. The world has the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, (IGLHRC) America has its Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, (GLAD) and Guyana has her Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination, (SASOD) – though some may feel it’s actually SO SAD that some gays in this country are still victims of rampant homophobia.
Because of these gains, it has become de rigueur to say and do politically-correct things with respect to gay people, gay rights, and gay behaviour. However I’m certain that many who do secretly harbour resentment against what they may see as an imposition on their right of opinion, and distaste for something they view as innately aberrant and sinful. Some feel US President Obama is one such person.
By the way, I ask, ‘Can a presidential nominee in America dare to take an anti-gay-agenda stand in contemporary US politics?’ Maybe, if he/she is resigned to losing the race to the White House.
With the recent Supreme Court of the United States same-sex ruling, many Americans indeed seem to be throwing up their hands in resignation and despair, even as rainbow flags flutter and fly countrywide. Others are of course in a more accepting and celebratory mood.
A recent video on the internet showing a New York City policeman ‘backballing’ with a gay pride parader has gone viral. The image and the comments on it feelingly describe a range of responses by viewers, from comic to apocalyptic. They include ‘shining example of public relations’ to ‘very unprofessional’ to ‘This is Sodom, and we all know what happened there.’ A few others cannot be printed.
For my part, I acknowledge, and would defend, the right of all human beings to be treated with dignity and respect, complemented by the freedom to pursue happiness. I simply do not like to feel that I’m being forced into political correctness. I do not like the flaunting of what is called gay pride, the idea of same-sex marriage, or the public display of sexual license. Let me be, for like ‘Bad Boy’ Bobby Brown sang ‘It’s my prerogative!’
p.s. Next week I may look at another facet of this issue, maybe pertaining to the church. (If the world doesn’t end by then)
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Pix – rainbow
Caption: Spectators waving rainbow flags at a New York City Gay Pride parade last Sunday

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