The Height of Moral Degradation in Gods’ Own Country.

“The Strawberry letter” segment on the Steve Harvey Morning Show is one of my favorites. Every morning, people write letters to the show, baring their souls on some very personal issues. Some listeners are of the view that the letters are fictitious. But the presenters and, especially Shirley Strawberry, have often stated that the letters are real. And I believe them.

Today’s strawberry letter was a two-handed, heart-wrenching type. A man ( the letter-writer) wrote to say that he loved his wife (to whom he has been married since ten years ago) but that at the moment, he was at what I would describe as an emotional cross-road.

On the one hand, he started an affair with a sibling of his wife about three years ago. The sibling in question however was the twin brother of his wife. Now, the lover is threatening to inform his sister about the affair unless the letter-writer divorced her. Here was a guy desperate enough to break his sister’s marriage just so that he and the letter-writer could continue their gay relationship without hindrance.

On the other hand, the letter-writer wanted to justify the affair with his brother in-law by disclosing that his wife had cheated on him shortly after they got married. And guess who she cheated with? It was the letter-writer’s father. In fact, the woman got pregnant and had a baby boy for the older guy. The little boy is now being raised by the letter-writer. In view of this cheating issue therefore, the letter-writer believed that he had the moral right to comply with his gay lover’s demand.

Tommy Nephew’s response to the bundle of absurdities was the best in my view. At a future family re-union, Tommy gave hints about the way principal characters in that letter would be introduced?  To start with, the man’s wife would simultaneously be seen as his wife and as a step mother. The man’s gay lover would be introduced as his brother in-law and as his “significant other”. And the letter-writer’s hapless son could also double up as his brother. What a spectacle that family re-union would exhibit?

And I thought I had seen and heard everything about moral degradation in God’s own country. But that strawberry letter on the Steve Harvey Morning Show has since convinced me that I “ain't seen nothing yet"