“To love or to have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.” Victor Hugo aptly abridged this feeling. The feeling of love. An intense feeling of deep affection. But unfortunately we, have set boundaries of love. Boundaries wherein if opposite sex love each other, then it’s acceptable by the society. But, if two persons of same gender love each other, they are marginalized and segregated from the society.
The Bible states four different forms of love. Love for the family (Storge), Brotherly love (Philia), God’s divine love (Agape) and romantic love (Eros). Where has it been defined in Bible or in any other book that love cannot be between two persons of same gender? On what basis were the laws made to declare the marriage of lesbians and gay as illegal? Who are we to redefine love? Who are we to set boundaries? Just because majority of the masses have accepted that love can happen only between people with opposite gender, we should not accept the other sexualities? No equal rights for them? Are these people abnormal and should be kept in seclusion because there only mistake is that, they love? They love beyond gender. They love beyond sexuality.
On the one hand the society believes that one should not hate. “Don’t fight. Fighting is bad. Be friends.” The double-faced society is abstruse. It’s hard to believe that society don’t accept this feeling of love. Now when in some countries the marriages of LGBT community have been legalised, the suppression that the people of this community had to face has been legally ended. They have been provided with rights of legal marriage, but the mindset of society towards them, still remains the same. People regarding this issue are hypocritical. “Yes we support them,” they say, but when it comes to their family, they regard it as unconscionable and unjustified.
In my opinion, these people are not just survivors, they are warriors. The struggle, the difficulties, the hate that this community faces, is beyond our imagination. They don’t fight for luxuries, they don’t run in rat race, they don’t want lavish weddings like us, they just want acceptance. Acceptance from our so-called ‘society’.
I am a girl. I was harassed when I was in eighth standard. He used to touch me. Touch me at inappropriate areas of my body. I didn’t like it. The touch of it. Whenever he came near me, I was afraid. Afraid to be touched. I hate boys. I loathe them. There’s a girl in my college. We are friends. Her soul, is pure. We do the craziest of things together. She loves me, and I her. I couldn’t let her go. She makes me complete. She makes me feel alive. Crap. My parents. How will I tell them that I want to marry her one day? Will they accept that? Why is it so hard to explain what I feel to them? I love her and she loves me. I love my parents too. Hope they love her as well.“…Maa..Paa, I want to marry her. I really lover her. She makes me feel alive. She completes me…,” I said only this much. I couldn’t say anything more. The tear, the pain in the eyes of my parents said it all. Their fury, their abhorrence towards this relationship is clearly visible. I am going back….going into a deep dark hole. Piano in the background playing. Phew. A dream. Maybe I shouldn’t tell this to anyone. They’ll not accept me. I’ll be secluded. No..no..no.
Yes, we are a part of this world where people from this community are afraid to come out to their parents. They live dual lives. They are not them in that life, they are that ideal human being that the society accepts. Actors. Just because, we didn’t accept the way they are.
This is one of the many struggles that people from LGBT community face. The struggle to reveal their trueself. The struggle to disclose. LGBT people faces a lot of issues. Issues that one can’t even think of. It’s very difficult to adopt a child if the couple is from this community. The adoption rules are very strict. Can’t two women raise the child well? It’s better than the situation wherein a girl is raped by her own father, isn’t it?
The acceptance is only a small part of the problems as a whole. People from LGBT community are and have been deprived from the employment opportunities, the medical facilities (including the insurance facilities) and also educational facilities in some parts. It‚Äôs sad to imagine, how unsafe these individuals feel in the society. They are warriors, as I mentioned earlier. Under all these pressure and problems, these children of God are spreading love. Spreading colors in this grey world. It‚Äôs not that they are demanding special treatment or anything, they just want to be accepted. To be understood. To be loved. To have rights that should be provided beyond sexuality boundaries. People with antediluvian mindset, claiming to be the flag bearer of their religion should stop misleading the followers about the illegality and non-existence of such sexualities. It‚Äôs high time they understand that love is pure and it‚Äôs not a feeling that should be in boundaries. It is free from boundaries of gender, age, sexuality, color and caste. Love is infinite and we are not anyone to judge whose love is acceptable and whose is not. If we can’t accept them, it’s our own narrow mindedness. We have no rights whatsoever to harm them and to make them feel unsafe. It’s OUR world.
