There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. – Proverbs 14:12.
MONSIGNOR VINCENT BLACKETT should have stuck to his first prepared sermon on National Hero Errol Barrow and what his statue in Independence Square means to him. It would have been far more palatable than the mush he served up instead last Sunday afternoon at St Mary’s Church.
It was hard to believe that after a staccato and rambling mini-homily by Reverend Von Watson, obviously dumbstruck and overwhelmed by the moving of the National Independence Service from Independence Square to his own place of worship, that any other address could be worse.
In a sermon in which he struggled to make his points salient and cohesive, Monsignor Blackett lost his way among the family nuance, and strayed into a blind alley where he perceived gay bashing.
First, the priest spoke to worrying “emerging definitions of the family”. Well, foremost in redefining and reshaping the nuclear family, as most of us have known it, have been the gay army: two daddies or two mums they will give adopted – and confused – children.
But a compassionate monsignor would offer to the nation on television: “Whilst we will do all in our power to defend the sacred institution, the family, we will not support the bashing of people whose sexual orientation is different, nor are we going to join with those whose words can do nothing but create a homophobic atmosphere.”
What have gays to contribute to the nuclear family?
Then at this interdenominational service we are urged to join forces with “the largest religion in the world” – the Roman Catholic Church – in preaching love and leading people “from a place of sin to a place of total liberation”, without the bashing and condemnation – like Jesus did.
I recall Christ likening the scribes and Pharisees to whited sepulchres “which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness”.
But where in Barbados has Monsignor Blackett seen gay bashing? And who are the gay bashers of whom he speaks?
Barbadians for donkey’s years have been tolerant of – even inviting towards – the gay brigade, including the hard-feet, deep-clavicle men running around in hobble skirts and minis. It is just this new invasive agenda of theirs we cannot take.
I will tell Monsignor Blackett who the chief gay bashers are: the Apostles Peter and Paul. And you can throw Moses in the mix too.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul is not at all charitable.
“Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves; who changed the truth of God into a lie . . . .
“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature; and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.” (Romans 1:24 to 27) And Peter quite agreed.
“And account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things.
“Therein are some things hard to understand, which those who are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction.” (2 Peter 3:15 and 16)
Moses was the clearest of all.
“Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is an abomination.” (Leviticus 18:22)
Truth be told, the gays work with us, play with us, shop with us, fete with us – the last being the only bash they get from us. Any complaint they make is really only because they want attention – more than they deserve.
We argue on radio day by day. If the gays were being discriminated against, their voices wouldn’t be so loud.
The gay agenda is vibrant; too much so, methinks.
That is why I would like them to keep their bedroom and beach house business out of my face – and, for Christ’s sake, out of the church!
