God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

On Facebook I am part of the cause: “save the iranian gays Hamzeh and Loghman from being executed”
On the cause side one can see the youtube clip: Makwan, a letter from Paradise – which shows the hanging of a gay person in Iran and brings to live the life of a person who’s only guilt it was to love a man as a man. It is touching, shocking, moving, going to heart.  It is unbelievable that there are still countries where people are executed because of their sexual preference.  And religion is the cause for the death sentence.

I makes me aware of how powerful religion can be, that it can be a cause of life or death, a blessing or a curse for another person with a different ethical view and living condition. And it makes me so much more cautious about how I judge and talk about other people. Also in our Christian believe system is homosexuality intransic evil as I have read in one church paper. Working in the fields of HIV and AIDS, the gay issue is of course very often attached to it, specially when somebody is coming from Europe. Here in South Africa, the virus has no “gay” connotation, many women and heterosexual persons are infected. Nevertheless, when it comes to the history of the virus in the 80′, it was in the gay clubs of North America were the virus was prevalent and spread.

So sexual orientation is on the agenda again and again, when dealing with my portfolio. For me personally, I don’t think, that the sexual preference does not matter and I guess, that for God it also does not play a role – whether somebody has a good heart, develops his or her talents, is doing good, is a blessing for others – that might be rather criteria in his or her eyes. Well, I guess, even “his” or “her” means a limitation to God. But unfortunately our language needs a gender to express itself.  Having in the moment the big discussion about our South African female runner, it shows clearly how careful we should be with gender determination anyway.

Anyway, this film-clip about Makwan, yes, I would say Makwan has touched my heart and my soul this eve, and I will never ever forget what I have seen – and will be always in my mind, as a person, as a Christian, as a priest.

Filed under: Networking, Reflection, Society and living environment, Uncategorized, Aids, blessing, ethic, facebook, gay, God, hiv, homosexuality, iran, priest, religion, south africa, virus, youtube