A Right to Love

About the Book

Title: A Right to Love

Author: Mark Frew

Genre: Gay Fiction / Religious / Psychological

Book blurb: The story is about a non-religious man, called Michael, who is a teacher in a modern college. He meets a student, Polycarp, who is a refugee from Rwanda and who has lost all of his family. Michael decides to travel to Africa to find out if any of Polycarp's family members are still alive. In the process, he meets a devout Muslim sub-Saharan African man, Ibrahim. Michael and Ibrahim fall in love and as their relationship develops, Michael and Ibrahim have to adjust to each other's outlooks on life. Throughout the process, the interpretation of both the Bible and the Koran, and how homosexuality can be accepted within this framework are discussed.

Author bio

Mark Frew is a teacher of English to speakers of other languages. He has a bachelor degree in chemistry and is an avid linguist who speaks several languages. Mark Frew is also the author of Mauritian Creole in Seven Easy Lessons, Michael and the Multicoloured Gospel and Farewell My Pashtun.

Links

Bookpal: https://my.bookpal.com.au/Bookstore/b/10839-A-Right-To-Love

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Right-Love-Mark-Frew-ebook/dp/B014MB8EXC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1447083032&sr=8-3&keywords=a+right+to+love+mark

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26181123-a-right-to-love?from_search=true&search_version=service

Excerpt

“Bwana Michael,” Amani replied. “To be very honest with you, if I had not known about my father, I would have maintained the same belief as all other macho Tanzanian men that this relationship between him and you was wrong. But my father was a good father to us children and worthy of respect, not only because it is in our culture to respect our parents but because my father was a great man. Because of this, I have had to change my thoughts about the whole matter. Also, now that I have met you, and from what my father has said about you and all the good things you do, that you came all this way to help someone out, and now listening to what you have to say, I am forced to think differently about it. And I can see that you will make my father very happy.”

Amani stopped there which gave me a moment to reflect. Did you listen to yourself? I thought. Let’s substitute a few other hypothetical aspects of a person and see if you could say the same thing. “If I had known that my father was a murderer/rapist/thief/child molester, I would have had to change my thoughts about murderers/rapists/thieves/child molesters.” No, you would never say that. This just shows that your father’s sexuality is not in the same league. It wouldn’t matter how much you loved and respected your father in your childhood if one day you found out he made a practice of murdering people in cold blood, or raping people, or stealing things of great value, or molesting children. These would actually cause you to no longer respect your father, and in some ways fear him. The reason why you can continue to respect your father with this new knowledge of him is because deep down you know it is not inherently a bad thing. The only problem with it is that it makes people feel uncomfortable that people engage in such activities that others would never engage in themselves.