I believe in God. But that doesn’t make me religious. No, I don’t believe in a Krishna or a Jesus or an Allah specifically. I go to temples and churches only when I feel like taking a walk and being in a place where it is peaceful. I normally avoid crowded and loud occasions at such places. I don’t hang pictures of different versions of God in my house or light a lamp in the evenings. The only little sculptures of God we have are the ones gifted to us by others. I just believe in God as a point of force which drives me forward, even when I am almost ready to quit. I believe in God simply because I personally need something to believe in.

I don’t go around preaching to people the advantages of believing in God. I don’t go around warning people of the consequences of not believing in God either. I don’t tell people God created everything around us. I most certainly don’t tell people how they should live their life if they want to be in the good books of God.

But lately, as man (read human, and not male) becomes more and more educated and civilized I see that the tendency of man to drag God into their petty issues is increasing tremendously. And this same tendency has been the cue card for many to lead a so-called “noble fight” against the LGBT community, especially after same sex marriage was declared legal nationwide in the US.

While I don’t change my profile picture to rainbow colours to show I support the cause (only because I like my profile picture the way it is), I strongly believe that this a huge victory which has come the way of the LGBT community, although pretty late for a country which claims to be the forerunner in any aspect of progress. There have been other countries which have taken this step, years back. But especially for people from countries like India where the West primarily means the US, this has been the biggest milestone for the LGBT community.

Now I don’t expect everyone to rejoice about this. I can understand there are still people who, despite showing themselves off as progressive about a lot of things, are really orthodox about a lot of other things. I can also understand that the idea of sex within the same gender may make some people uncomfortable, even if they are not hard-core homophobes, just because it is not the way they do it themselves. I am completely for the freedom of opinion which these people have a right to. But that doesn’t entitle them to judge people from the LGBT community as people “with wrong desires”, “who pass on the wrong message and ruining the younger generation” etc and spread hate messages abusing and threatening them.

To justify these extremely “facepalm”-worthy ideas, they drag in poor God by giving their own idiotic interpretations of verses from holy books which were meant to unite people. I can’t even remember the number of posts enumerating the punitive measures God is going to take on anyone who is not a heterosexual. These self-proclaimed messengers of God seem to know exactly what is going to happen to these “pests spreading a plague” in this life and even afterlife. The warnings and sometimes threats are just too serious (read hilarious) to be ignored. This is followed by conclusions given by “Doctors” in websites of religious communities, attesting that homosexuality is caused by psychological issues, childhood abuse and what not, and can even be “cured”, as if it is a disease. And it ends with a deep sigh “We are giving this unnecessary freedom to people and it will be the death of civilization.”, as if not having had the legal freedom were stopping them from being homosexuals all these years.

Someone tell me, what is wrong with their desire? Just like a person who is straight tends to get attracted to a person of the opposite gender, a person who is homosexual gets attracted to a person of the same gender. That is the way they were born, it is simply a kind of sexual orientation. It is not even a choice, it is how they are. If you are straight and someone forces you to turn homosexual, would you do it? And if we can accept someone being straight, why can’t we accept someone who is a homosexual? Simply because something was considered the right thing to do for centuries, it doesn’t mean people who have been hiding themselves in the closet should live that way for the centuries to come as well.

And what on earth does ruining the younger generation by giving them the wrong message mean? It is not like supporting drug abuse and leading the younger generation to become addicts. One thing people desperately need to understand is you can’t just go ahead and turn a heterosexual into a homosexual or vice versa. It’s a different story that a lot of homosexuals are forced to live like heterosexuals owing to the pressure of acceptance from their family, society etc. But deep within, you are who you are. Like Callie says in Grey’s Anatomy, “You can’t pray the gay away.” You can’t counsel a person and say you have succeeded in making him/her “not gay”. The people who claim such success must understand that they have sent that person to eternal distress of not being able to live the way he/she is.

I am sure that a lot of psychological issues might have been seen from the childhood when “Doctors” researched on homosexuality. But that does not mean the psychological issues turned them homosexual. It must be seen the other way that being homosexual and themselves in a society which wouldn’t let you be yourself led to these psychological issues. So whether same-sex marriage was made legal or not, whether it was fortified by the White House itself accepting it or not, people would continue to be who they are. The only message passed on here is “Live and let live”.

But sadly enough, we can’t do that, can we? If there really is a God who punishes people for evil thoughts and evil doings, I’m sure he (or for that matter she), will come down personally to our world and give a well-deserved slap to all those who consider themselves superior to others just because they do things according to the set standards, to those who demean and insult others for being different from themselves, to those who ridicule and isolate fellow human beings as if the basic fundamental right of equality does not apply to them. If there really is a God who creates everything, I’m sure one day he/she will stop creating such jackasses, who do not even know how to respect other human beings and force people like me to refer to them as jackasses, thereby making myself one.