Sunday, 5 February 2012

Hate Crime

It’s a normal day in the office,
                                    mostly boring with nothing great planned
When the phone rings, not routine any more,
                                    nor boring, nor quiet, nor bland.
But a man disabled and living with pain,
                                    whom the locals have started attacking-
Name calling at first, then throwing things,
                                    coming closer when punishment’s lacking.
There’s no choice to be made,
                                    it’s just not hard to know
That it’s wrong, and a crime,
                                    and I tell the man so.
I call the Police, go as high as I can,
And find a policeman, who’ll visit that man.
And I long to know
                                    that the cowards were caught,
And taken to court
                                    and a sharp lesson taught,
Though I don’t really think that it’s so.

It’s a normal day in the parish,
                                    assembled on Sunday to pray
And the man who’s leading the prayers
                                    is ever so clearly gay.
We think we know his value –
                                    musician we love to have play
But we didn’t know how much we’d hurt him
                                    til we heard what his prayers had to say.

“We pray for those socially unacceptable people
 who long to be who they are.”

Unpartnered now maybe for ever,
                                    he will celibate go to his grave
Because we couldn’t allow him
                                    the love that it’s human to crave.

I wonder if Jesus will bless us,
                                    as Bibles held firmly in hand
We march in our holy procession
                                    towards his promised land
Or whether he’ll say that Aquinas
                                    was simply a man of his time,
And explain that he’s told Paul of Tarsus
                                    what the God of love thinks of his crime.

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