Religion, Morality & Sexuality

Being gay can be confounding when you are born and brought up in a conservative country where same sex intercourse is considered illegal, not to mention immoral. But homosexuality has always been a very contentious issue all across the world. The ubiquitous question seems to be: Is homosexuality right or wrong? The question itself is fundamentally wrong. The fact one needs to understand while considering it is that homosexuality is not a choice. One doesn’t choose to be gay. It’s something that is inherent.

The last two millenniums saw the amalgamation of religion, morality and sexuality into something appallingly distorted. “Religion is the opium of the masses” said Karl Marx and history corroborates that. Religion has always divided people. People have fought against each other and waged wars which have only caused death and destruction. Nothing good has ever come out of it and nothing ever will. Today we see hegemony and terrorism, side by side. And in both the cases religion is closely linked, although in different ways. When religion has caused so much harm, why do we need it? Why do we need it to determine what is moral and what isn’t? Why should we link morality with religion?

But what is morality? What is morally correct and what isn’t? Who determines that? These are all questions to ponder. I believe that something inherent (that word again) comes into play here as well. I believe we have an intrinsic capacity to know right from wrong. Of course the environment that we live in has a huge influence. But that’s exactly the reason why that capacity of ours gets deformed and corrupted. For instance, we have been brought up to believe that sex is something morally incorrect. There’s always secrecy and guilt surrounding sex. That prompts the question: Is sex wrong? And the answer to that is it is not. Then what is wrong in sex? And innately we know that pedophilia and rape are the two crimes related to sex. But isn’t cheating on your partner morally wrong too? Yes it is (Of course, there may be extenuating circumstances but I doubt it). But that seems to be happening everywhere and those people seem to have no problem living out their lives they want to without any sort of discrimination.

The society has changed so much that being promiscuous is now considered cool and moral (well, almost). Even then homosexuality is taboo. Why is there a reluctance to accept gay people? Is it just because they are attracted to people of same sex? Even the most liberal minded people seem to have some kind of a prejudice against gay people which is astonishing, or maybe not. We have been made to believe for thousands of years that homosexuality is immoral. But if we really look at it, do we need the codes and rules of morality which smacks of hypocrisy? Do we need to follow something that corrupts our minds and souls? Or even worse, haven’t we all become amoral beings, incapable of knowing right from wrong?