Gay Sikhs: ‘You’re not alone’
By Paula Carlson
Surrey North Delta Leader
Amar Sangha was a 14-year-old Frank Hurt honour roll student with a dilemma.
He was attracted to men, but he wanted to like women.
Putting aside his adolescent crushes on Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth and actor Michael J. Fox, he began seeing a psychiatrist with the hope of becoming “straight.”
It didn’t work.
After three years, the counselling sessions came to an end, and Sangha began to accept who he was: a homosexual.
Twenty years later, in a home in North Delta, Sangha sits next to his mother Jaspal, who is wearing a sunny yellow sari in honour of recent Vaisakhi celebrations.
The brightly coloured material matches the matriarch’s opinion of her son – the middle one of three.
Calling Amar “a precious gift from God,” Jaspal accepts her boy as he is.
In keeping with her religion – Sikhism – Jaspal believes all human beings are created equal and no one should harbour animosity against another.
She acknowledges not everyone thinks the same way.
“Ninety-nine-point-nine per cent in my community believe (homosexuality) is a choice,” she says, including Amar’s father.
Some have stronger words than that.
full article
Surrey North Delta Leader
Amar Sangha was a 14-year-old Frank Hurt honour roll student with a dilemma.
He was attracted to men, but he wanted to like women.
Putting aside his adolescent crushes on Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth and actor Michael J. Fox, he began seeing a psychiatrist with the hope of becoming “straight.”
It didn’t work.
After three years, the counselling sessions came to an end, and Sangha began to accept who he was: a homosexual.
Twenty years later, in a home in North Delta, Sangha sits next to his mother Jaspal, who is wearing a sunny yellow sari in honour of recent Vaisakhi celebrations.
The brightly coloured material matches the matriarch’s opinion of her son – the middle one of three.
Calling Amar “a precious gift from God,” Jaspal accepts her boy as he is.
In keeping with her religion – Sikhism – Jaspal believes all human beings are created equal and no one should harbour animosity against another.
She acknowledges not everyone thinks the same way.
“Ninety-nine-point-nine per cent in my community believe (homosexuality) is a choice,” she says, including Amar’s father.
Some have stronger words than that.
full article
Comments