I'm Not Crying On Sundays

I'm Not Crying On Sundays...by Erin Clegg


I'm not crying on sundays
Even when the priests, and the pastors
And the so-called believers
Judge me through their woven mind
Mentally arresting me with a demeanor
that they think I committed
I can almost hear them say
You have the right to be silent
Ha
Silence is never a privilege,
it's a sickness

And they say they want religious freedom
But they've forgotten, I'm still a religious believer too
And I want freedom
To love who I want to
Is that so bad, after all?

Some say "it's enough that we tolerate you
You don't need a marriage certificate
To confirm your evil sinning
You already have enough rights"

But do I?

I may have rights, but you have more
And you say it's because the bible says so?
Well, what about the Atheists, they have the freedom to not believe
And we not only tolerate them, but give them all their rights, rightly
And you call them Sinners, for not believing God
But you'll still allow them to have the right to carry on
Now I'm not saying anything of it
I want freedom for all
But that also includes me, even if you believe I'm just a messed up sinner
After all
Isn't stealing a sin as well? And if all sin is equal before God, then that is
YOUR sin
You stole away MY choice, MY right, MY faith
Because my faith is in a God, who loves me nonetheless
Loves me so much
He wouldn't care less
Who I marry
If I have kids
If I wear a dress, or khaki pants to Church
Or if I hold hands with another girl

Now I agree, everyone is entitled to their opinion
But my rights have been stolen, and I have the right to fight for them
Just like the oppression days, their still surprisingly going on today,
us people of color had to face
Our children years from now
Will look back
At our generation and shake their heads
They'll react to us as we do to racists
"They were so stupid. How could they do such a thing?"
Now I am not saying the rights of marriage equality, and
trying to stop LGBT bullying, all bullying actually,
is the same fight that those twenty years ago face
Even now today,
What I'm saying is that generally, we all have the same dream

To live in a world where everybody could be free
No matter what race, ethnicity
Background, social status
Or sexual orientation


And see

No matter if gay marriage is legalized or not
It's not just going to make the gay people stop
It's not like people will stop being gay
That's like asking a brunette to change into a blonde or a ginger
And hey
Sure they can dye their hair, trying to hide their true colors
But dye fades away, and so do lies...they uncover

 Land Of The Free
The Greatest nation on Earth
Ha
Makes me sick

You're lying to yourself when you say that the United States
is everything and all those things
You say it's a free country
Doesn't look like that to me

Uncle Sam seems to be holding back the rights of many tax-payers
See, we're paying for legality for your wedding day
And we're paying our tithing to the church that doesn't permit us to even
have a wedding day
And if we want to be married and have a family,
We have to move to other states
Just to have the approval
Just to settle down
Just to build a life
Just to be us

America
Sounds like Land of the Bondage to me
And the pharaoh is you
Because you won't let me and my people go
We are slaves to the homophobic conservatives
Anybody really,
Who scorns us
And some of us are to scared to riot, to fight for our rights then
They take the toll of dying
Killing themselves not out of fear, but tiredness
Tired of being told to live their lives right
And they damn tried
So instead, they tried
And they won
A victory of death
But the victory doesn't go to the victim
It goes to you, yes you
You who didn't accept them when they were alive
But now you're crying, screaming why

 And I can hear intolerants all over again
"Keep your love life separate, and out of the bonds of marriage,
and you will have equality"
But see separation will never, ever
Be equivalent to equality

We should know this by now
Yet we're rewinding history

Remember when preachers back then would go to the bible
to confirm that African-Americans had no worth? And that
separation from them was the key to live a holy life

No
I don't want to get deep in that
Makes my skin crawl just to think about that
And I bet you're cringing back
Yeah

Let's talk positive
We still have ways to go
If we keep relying on this bible and other religious texts to know
what's lawful, then why is their religious freedom? So that we can
all follow what that book teaches?
Didn't you notice it also say in the bible that women must be silent in churches?
Oh yeah, 1 Corinthians 14:34...Yet no one wants to talk about the sexism in that verse
But everyone wants to talk about how homosexuality is wrong, when that was said in
the Old testament is one bias verse,
and when they are many scriptures that referenced
that eating red meats should not be accepted
And that their was a certain way to treat the Sabbath
And to make animal sacrifices to Jesus
But we don't do that
Do we?
No
Because frankly, it's outdated
So stop relying on a scripture from a man who was sinner too
Just because your religious, doesn't mean your sinless


Truth

So let's turn away from religion
And just think
Law is the law, and you don't have to agree
That's what civil disobedience is for
Now, true
You have the freedom of speech
But once your speech contradicts humanity
Then you're speech is slightly off key
Let's just breathe
Do you actually think
If gay marriage was legalized, it would be
worse?
How about...better
Again, you don't have to agree
You can say in your church you think it's morally wrong
Whatever
But religion should never govern the law
We can build a nation on godly standards
But see it depends
What God, you believe in
You see
So just let us be free
Because sooner or later, things are going to get... ugly
I can see it now
SO
Take the time now
To think over what freedom really means
What you really believe
Because me or her or him, being gay
won't stop making you straight
And just because you're straight
doesn't mean you're straight-up
righteous

No matter what you believe,
we all embrace freedom
So let's make peace

And hey,
I'm not crying on Sundays
I still go to Church, trying my best
Making mistakes, learning from everything
Keeping on that truth spectrum
Never regretting,
But never denying, who I love
Boy or Girl
It's all the same
If we base it on
love

And so when you see me on sunday,
Just know I ain't crying
I'm not justifying
I don't need to justify love for others
That's what humans do
Human
You
Me
Same


- Erin Clegg