Pride

Much has been said about when two members of the same gender

Share the same bed.

I can picture you now clutching your pearls,

Ready to hurl.

But the issue isn’t me.

See, when two dudes screw, you say eww.

Oh, boo hoo.

Oh no, booboo.

You don’t get to dictate who I date

Based on your supposedly Biblically-mandated hate.

Not when you pick and choose which verses to hurl at me like curses,

While ignoring the ones that would be inconvenient for you to follow—

Like working on the Sabbath; eating pork, lobster, and other shellfish; or wearing clothes of blended fabrics.

I doubt these are habits you’d kick and that makes your castigation hollow.

Don’t get it twisted.

Because I take another brother as my lover

Doesn’t diminish the spark of divinity in me.

I am not of the Enemy or less than because I love men.

I am not a traitor to my race or a waste of space for loving who I do.

So do not “pray” or weep for me.

A lion does not lose sleep over the baas of sheep;

I will not let you shake my equanimity.

For if God can bring light to those lost in the eternal night,

Restore sight to the blind, and breathe life into the dead,

Then if I eat the bread of life,

It shouldn’t matter to Him who I take to bed.