Gay? So what!

I must be becoming a really grumpy old fart as the counter on my birthday cake continues to rise because having heard so many plaudits about a geezer who used to play rugger having come out and told us that he's homosexual I found myself mumbling, "So what?" Driving along and listening to the radio yesterday with phone-ins and email being read out about what a great role model this presents and the hope that one day all sportmen will acknowledge their sexuality and be freed to 'come out' I became increasingly aware that I was interested in the score on the pitch and not the antics in the bedroom.
  
Perhaps I am missing something and should begin the midnight service with the words, "Hello, welcome to the Christmas Eve service, I'm Vic and I'm a heterosexual!' I don't actually see why people have to introduce themselves with a label proclaiming their sexual choices, are they hoping for an endorsement of this choice, are they laying down the lines for a tussle over the lifestyle they have chosen or is it because they're really proud of the choices made and want me to put the picture they've made of their life on my 'fridge?
   
I heard stories of the pain of blokes who were married and having to have sexual relationships with other blokes in secret and thought that we were merely talking of adultery. I heard stories of women who were in love with other women but needed to keep that quiet because it wasn't acceptable and how they'd be acted against if they were to make it public. This is actually against the law and so I was surprised that this was the case. Mind you, later another woman came on the air and in the discussion it transpired it was merely that she didn't want her family to know - a very different situation indeed.
  
As I see it, homosexuality is just another one of 'those' issues. It is splitting the Church and yet is is such a very small issue when you consider that (according to the various studies) there are no more than 6% of the world's population who are homosexual (some say 3%). This is a piddlingly small number when we consider the percentage of the world who are starving, dying for want of medications, in need of good sanitation, needing clean and trustworthy water, living under the threat of death through corrupt regimes and internecine violence.
  
I am not looking to debate the subject itself because those who hold any view on it will rarely move (and never bring anything new to the party when it is discussed). Those who support it usually accuse those who stand opposed as homophobic and utter vile mutterings and those who who support it are berated and labelled disgracefully by those who stand opposed. Waste of breath - people rarely dialogue on this - merely shout their views with their fingers in their ears!
   
I do not give a monkeys whether the bloke who scores a winning goal in a cup final is homosexual or heterosexual, all I care about is that he's wearing the shirt of a team I support!l
  
I do not need sporting role models - for role models such as this seek to turn people's heads and get them to wear the brand of clothing they have on their back, use the same razor, smell like them with the brands of after-shave and under wherever sprays. I don't want to be encouraged to be homosexual because it's trendy and  [insert hero] does it, I want to be free to be me and enjoy that freedom. So when someone's honest about their choices - I am pleased for them. I just hope we are all as pleased when we stand before God and discuss the choices we've made in this life.
  
So a plea. Keep it in your bedroom, keep it in your trousers (or under your knickers) and don't expect me to applaud things that really have no real impact on anywhere outside your own small, and self-obsessed, self-absorbed, world. What does matter is that today 5,000 children under five will die because of poor sanitation. Add to this the 20,000 who die from other diseases and you'll start to realise just how unimportant this is in the general and meaningful scheme of things(unless of course you're trying to promote this marginal lifestyle as a majority choice).
  
Pax