An Old Ode Old to You who Want to Know

This is an old ode old to YOU who want to know or who imply

That I am gay because YOU see on my Facebook page

A post in favor of my gay brothers and sisters

Because YOU can’t bring yourself to believe that a heterosexual black Christian preacher girl

Would take such a stand unless she was something you could despise

Or unless YOU in your mind could make her Other than YOU

I would not have YOU to be ignorant, my brothers and sisters

But I do not have to be gay to stand with

Other human beings who want the same rights that

We heterosexuals have

YOU want to know, fellow Christian, who despised me and decided I was/am

Less human than YOU because I have darker skin

YOU want to know brother/sister Christian, YOU who slight me because I say I am

Called to preach but I am the wrong gender for YOU to

Respect me and ask me to preach except on Women’s Day, No matter how well I preach

And how the Spirit uses me.

YOU want to know who am I to claim to be a Christian and to stand with my fellow human beings who believe God loves them as they are and made them as they are

YOU who lied about me, talked about me, tried to pull me down

Just yesterday

YOU want to make me what YOU despise

Because I stand with other human beings who want the rights YOU and I have

YOU want to know because you forgot or you conveniently dismissed

How many heterosexual men and women have abused women and children

Because they are perverse heterosexual men and women, many of who are

Like YOU Christians who hate and oppose gay men and women having rights

Rights they opposed and some still oppose for blacks and mixed couples

YOU who preach hard and long against gays as an abomination before God

And then YOU, self-proclaimed heterosexual preacher, have secretly sodomized, raped, fondled, cuddled with and loved others of your same sex

I remember the youth pastor, a married man with children, in Maryland who was found

Out… YOU know what I’m talking about

YOU know, YOU remember….Let me refresh your memory

About the pastor’s daughter in California who not so long ago raped and murdered

The little girl who attended her Sunday school class

YOU know the not so LONG ago priests/preachers who have abused the children

While YOU in the pews look the other way, support them

Or explain it away by claiming they must have been gay

As if gays are the only people capable of committing such sexual crimes

YOU know the church has its own “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy….

Always whispering about this one and that one

Yet the church roles and rolls on

Don’t YOU know that my grandfather was a heterosexual male, married four times

Don’t YOU know he was a deacon in the Baptist church

Don’t YOU know he was the one who molested me and raped one of his own estranged daughters

YOU in the church, YOU who lied about me to my face without blinking an eye

YOU who continually stretch the truth but never admit to lying

YOU in the church, who dismiss the hungry and homeless by claiming they don’t exist

YOU who gossip, spread rumors, create confusion and dissension

If YOU say gays are an abomination before God because the Bible says so,

Then YOU have more in common than YOU care to admit

But you stand your ground as if your ground is holier….

And YOU want to know what?  What is it YOU want to know?