This morning I was asked to be a guest on Nihal’s Breakfast show on the BBC Asian Network radio station here in Britain. The topic of discussion was “If you are religious does that mean you have a duty to oppose gay marriage?”
It can be downloaded as a MP3 here.
The whole experience was a very positive one. I was first introduced and gave a short speech about how I feel about this topic. As a religious person I know that there is no problem in being homosexual OR being married to a man. The Lavaan are a collection of 4 hymns that are sung during a Sikh wedding ceremony (Anand Karaj), in these hymns it quite clearly states the marriage is between two souls. Souls are genderless. Marriage is a union between God and the union of two souls. In short, the Lavaan is non-gender specific. This leads me to believe there is nothing stopping homosexuals from getting married in the Gurdwara.
A certain Dr Al-Hadad was also a guest on the show; he opposed equal marriage but I feel failed to persuade anyone. His views were very archaic and were dismissed by many tweeters as well as Nihal himself. The Doctor tried to say that its been scientifically proven that homosexual men are more likely to get infected with HIV. This is an absurd comment, scientifically implies genetically. What he is trying to say is somehow because we are genetically different, we are more susceptible in catching HIV. I’ve never heard such rubbish. I seriously doubt his qualification. Another point he made was in regards to how children need a male father and female mother. He believed that equal marriage shouldn’t be forced to children at school. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to respond. What I wanted to ask was whether he was told how to love and who to love at school. A school is a place of education. I do believe that kids should know homosexuals exist, its nothing to laugh about and its against the law to be homophobic. Personally, I doubt he has ever been in contact with an openly gay person before. I pity him, he needs educating desperately.
A lady from the North was next up, she was against equal marriage saying “it’s not natural”. That comment was quickly shunned when I simply told her it’s been proven that homosexuals are genetically different to heterosexuals. She believed that being gay was a choice. Even claiming she CHOSE to be straight. However when I asked her when she decided to NOT be a lesbian, her point was quickly invalidated.
On the whole, the experience was positive. I’m not gonna lie, it was quite nerve-wracking. However the plus points are that this blog has been advertised on an International radio station, the message about Gay Sikhs has been spoken about and therefore will be discussed. I really hope that my comments today made others think again about their negative thoughts on homosexuality. Being Gay and Sikh is not something contradictory, it’s not blasphemous and religiously speaking it’s perfectly acceptable having a homosexual marriage in a Gurdwara. Unfortunately, due to cultural differences, this is not possible.
Yet.