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GuptKaur made some very interesting comments about my previous post outlining why she believes there’s no place for homosexuality within Sikhism. I have chosen to reply to this in way of a post. I’ll be quoting her and then adding my response after. First of I want to say I am not against homosexuality. BUT I do wonder where your knowledge of Sikhi stems from or how deep it goes. Alot of it seems to be based on what you wish to believe and interpret, which can be said for anyone.. But just try to be literal with Gurbani for a second and although Maharaj does not directly state anything about homosexuality it is very clear through our Rehat Maryada/Rehatnameh (code of conduct) that a marriage or relationship – should be between a man and woman. ...

This Sunday 10th February 2013 I will be a guest on BBC Radio Gloucestershire’s discussing life as an Asian Gay person. It will be pre-recorded around 4pm and broadcast between 6-8pm. Tune in!

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. ...

It seems from all of yesterdays events Twitter has suspended my account. I’ve spoken to them and it’ll be back up tomorrow. In the mean time feel free to comment on this post. Thanks! UPDATE (24/01/2013): Twitter have unsuspended my account, @GaySikh. Cheers guys(!) UPDATE (26/01/2013): Been suspended again, no idea why Twitter why do this. Have appealed, waiting to hear back. If anyone knows why or how this process can be sped up, please comment below. Many thanks. ...

Last night was a real milestone for this site. As usual, I get comments from Straight Sikhs saying that I’m “disgracing” their religion and that there’s no space for Gay in Sikhi. This time around, the comments were read by some influential Sikhs on Twitter namely Hardeep Singh Kohli, Param_TakeMeOut and Sky News Singh. After their retweets and inclusion in debates (minus Sky News Singh), this account got a LOT of exposure. Visits to this site went through the roof, almost tripled! ...

I got some support from none other than Mr Hardeep Singh Kohli. >He’s also following @GaySikh: Hardeep Singh Kohli agrees with Gay Sikh’s! “Feel the love…, I’m fully on-side x” This is amazing! Hardeep Singh Kohli, an upstanding Sikh member of society, an author, chef, Radio 4 presenter, comedian and much more agrees with me! Homosexuality HAS got a place in Sikhism. He sent this message to all of his 20,000 followers. The word is being spread and I really hope more and more high profile celebrities like this begin to take note and help out. It’s so important to know that being gay is NOT a choice, it’s been proven, here’s a BBC article. This tweet was further retweeted by Brit Asia, definitely a date for my diary! ...

I opened a Twitter account @GaySikh a few days ago to further promote this site. My main aim for this account was to see how the public would respond to an account entitled Gay Sikh. As you can imagine some users found this name not only blasphemous but also misleading. The first tweet I received was from @AmoSingh1 who clearly is homophobic, the tweet contained a very well designed poster from Sarbat.net: ...

There is a great article about a Gay Saint on WaheguruNet. The following paragraph stands out for me: One openly gay saint is Sarmad, who was a follower of Mian Mir, the Muslim Pir who is believed to have laid the foundation stone of the Harimandir Sahib (Golden Temple), the most important of Sikh gurdwaras, in 1588. The Golden Temple is the most iconic and important places in the world for a Sikh, the Guru’s obviously knew this, if they believed being Homosexual was incorrect then why would they allow an openly Gay Saint the privilege of laying the foundation? To me, the answer is simple and it goes back to the core beliefs of Sikhism which is everyone is equal. It was of no relevance of Sarmad’s religion, gender or sexual orientation. He was obviously a good person in the Guru’s eyes (he was a Saint after all), so why not allow him to help create the wonderful Golden Temple? This is a great story to recall if there ever are any doubts about homosexuality being acceptable within Sikhism. ...

If I had to summarise Sikhism in one word it would be “Equality”. Guru Nanak created Sikhism and wanted everyone to be included regardless of age, gender or religion. He was born in the Punjab where the two major religions were Hinduism and Islam. He didn’t like the idea that in Hinduism there was a caste system and a bias towards women. This didn’t sit well with him, he believed that every human has been created by God, therefore everyone is equal to each other, just because you are a male born into a certain caste should not give you an elite status. Besides, different status’ create separation and this was the opposite of what Guru Nanak wanted to achieve. Women were unable to be pure because they menstruate and give birth to children, this was considered dirty. Guru Nanak quite rightly pointed out that these very women give birth to Kings of the land, surely they should be regarded in a better light? ...

Came across this video today of Canadian Sikh Vlogger called Superwoman tackling the issue of homosexuality within the Asian community. Whilst she doesn’t go into any religious references and stresses it’s her opinion, she portrays a very positive message mixed with humour.