Content warning: references to trauma, religious persecution, and psychological harm
A week ago, a Vincentian resident—who easily befriends me because I live in Canada, and who has a closeted queer brother, also my frien—informed me that she will never read my books because they “promote homosexuality,” which the apostle Paul deems a capital offence. She added that since the Bible is “God’s infallible word,” Paul’s text must be accepted as “incontrovertible truth.” To my reply that Paul’s opinions and the Bible’s origins have nothing to do with actual same-sex practices, she replied that gays who truly accept Christ are automatically cured of same-sex desire. Her certitudes notwithstanding, I know that her brother, also a born-again Christian, is bedeviled by same-sex desire. From my reading of the plethora of “coming-out” memoirs by Queers who, like me, were raised as Christians, I know that we had all been told that prayer and the born-again experience would make us straight, and we had all wanted it to be true. To remain sane, most of us left those churches.
In And Then Again Begin (and in Easily Fooled, the novel that preceded it), I explore inter alia why, consciously and unconsciously, Caribbean parents force their queer children into masking their sexuality and what happens when their children refuse. As regards masking, there are numerous reasons for this: Old Testament theology, which authorizes the killing of disobedient children, and nebulous feelings of human ownership, passed down from slavery, predispose Caribbean parents into thinking they can dictate the behaviour of their children. Another reason is that born-again fundamentalist Christianity—the only version of Christianity that most West Indians know, even members of the mainline churches—teaches that same-sex behaviour is a choice. (It is why the woman mentioned above referred me to Paul’s doctrine.) Because West Indians believe that the Bible is infallible, they leave no room for opposing arguments. Sadly, most Queers comply and closet themselves. Many accept these beliefs and become hyper-religious to allay suspicion and thus avoid persecution.
What happens when West Indian Queers refuse to mask or suppress their sexuality? Their parents are forced to choose categorically either to be allies of their children or allies of the community. Those parents who choose to support their Queer children must invariably deal with unrelenting community opprobrium. They are reminded in church, on the street, and in popular songs on the radio, that according to the Torah and the Apostle Paul homosexuality is a capital offence. Their parenting styles are parsed and usually found wanting. Moreover, West Indian theologians have been so effective in linking homosexuality to hell, the Devil, and pedophilia that parents and siblings of Queer people believe that any support for queer sexuality would imperil their souls and destroy their moral standing. Some preachers blame Queers for the natural disasters that strike the Caribbean; they see these disasters as punishment from God because of the presence of Queers in the community, much as God supposedly punished Sodom and Gomorrah. Politicians join in the persecution too. One, also a Pentecostal preacher, opined that he’d like to see all gays burned alive.
Even those Queers who, like me, find refuge in Europe and North America, remain psychologically scarred by the rejection and persecution that caused us to flee. I know a few West Indian LGBTQ people living in Canada who remain tethered to the belief that Queer sex is sinful.
The foregoing said, there are glimmers of hope. The judiciary in several Anglophone Caribbean countries have been overturning the laws that bolster the persecution of Queers. This has led to small spaces where freedom from harassment and persecution can be discussed.
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H. Nigel Thomas came to Canada from St Vincent and the Grenadines in 1968. He is a retired professor of U.S. literature, the author of numerous essays and fourteen books, as well as the founder and co-host of Lectures Logos Readings. His books tend to focus on queer themes, parent-child relationships in Canada and the Caribbean, and the plethora of issues central to Afro-Caribbean and African Canadian existence. He has received many awards, including the 2022 Canada Council John Molson Prize for the Arts.
Photo of H. Nigel Thomas by Tony Hadley.
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