Last night I was driving down the road.  My radio was off and it was silent except for the noise of my car as it pressed on down the road.  Suddenly, I started singing in my head and gradually began singing out loud:

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

I had never really considered the lyrics to John Lennon’s Imagine.  I knew them, but not well.  Even while trying to sing it in the car I had to stop and think to remember some of the lines.  Like Prince, John Lennon was dreaming when he wrote this song.  I got to thinking about the song, it’s popularity and how it is embraced by the masses in spite of it being anti-religion and anti-nationalistic.  I was curious what caused this phenomena and found John Lennon’s comment online stating the song to be:

an anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic song, but because it’s sugar-coated, it’s accepted.

I tried to think of how to apply that to the “Gay Rights” movement, which has received much negative attention from some press organizations as of late for being “radical” and “leftist”.  There have even been comments associating LGBT activists with terrorists even though for the most part we are peaceful, kind and concerned people.  Then it occurred to me that there is nothing to sugar-coat regarding LGBT people.  We are out there asking people to let us do those things that they are legally allowed to do and we are not.  We are asking people to support us when we say, “Please stop killing our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered brothers and sisters.”  We are just hoping for a better tomorrow, like Lennon.  All we are guilty of is dreaming.  If that’s not “sugar-coated” what is?

I thought perhaps John Lennon was right, if their were no heaven or hell, no religion or country, no hunger or greed, “the world will live as one.”  I thought about the Utopian society that would be created (which lead me to think about what a difficult read Thomas Moore’s Utopia was).  Then I though — Utopia would be pretty boring.

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