Julius Sseremba

It finally happened. The deplorable. The unthinkable. The despicable. All moralists weep and along I cry. A man, Sir Elton John, and another man, David Furnish, sealed their long time homosexual relationship with the blessing of the government of the United Kingdom. Equally fascinating, Furnish’s dog, Arthur, acted as emperekeze.

The Bible has some interesting insights on the fascinating relationship between man and beast. First, God instructed man to be ruler of the earth and specifically mentioned that he was to have dominion over the beasts.

The benevolent man-beast relationship was by implication a mirror of the benevolent God-man relationship. In the gospels, God refers to man as a sheep and himself as a shepherd.

The desire by man to pursue a God-free destiny, which is indeed a form of self-worship, has always caused an upturn in the man-beast relationship. The man becomes like a beast and is no longer regarded as the ruler in the sense he was meant to be at creation.

The apostle Paul highlights this pitiable situation in his letter to the Romans: “And by them the glory of the eternal God was changed and made into the image of man who is not eternal, and of birds and beasts and things which go on the earth.

For this reason God gave them up to the evil desires of their hearts, working shame in their bodies with one another. Because by them the true word of God was changed into that which was false and their women were changing the natural use into one which is unnatural.

And in the same way the men gave up the natural use of the woman and were burning in their desire for one another, men doing shame with men, and getting in their bodies the right reward of their evil-doing.”

The story of Balaam and the speaking ass in the book of Numbers in which the angel of the Lord lauds the beast for having done right and lambasts the prophet for walking away from the plan and purpose of God is a poignant echo of this upturn whenever man has sought to triumphantly walk away from the auspices of a benevolent God to pursue self-centred desires.

Nebuchadnezzar was banished by God to the wild fields for several years to live and eat like the wild beasts because he became so perverted as to think of himself as God. Doesn’t the idea of according homosexuality the dignity of sexual orientation lower man to a beastial level where sexual urges cannot be controlled any more?

It remains to be seen how many countries are going to attempt to tread this slippery slope against the dictates of God where even the beasts shall be lauded, for a lion goes with the lioness and the bull with the cow.