I’m completely irked with the past two weeks’ banter on the subject of religion and homosexuality.

First came the Bible thumpers with the literary equivalent of sticking their fingers in their collective ears saying: “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, we’re not listening to you! Our version of Jesus is the one true way; we’ll go on saying what we always say!”

I suppose that was to be expected.

Second came the waves of responses to the Bible thumpers: “You Christians make me sick. The Bible is a big sack of whale farts, and I’m not going to hell ‘cuz hell’s been torn down and replaced by a Kwik-E-Mart, where’ve you been? So there. Nyah, nyah, nyah.”

Not too constructive, is it?

So I went for a run last night, trying to exorcise my frustration with the recent debate. My thoughts were a whirlwind.

I’ve tried awfully hard to offer an intelligent and constructive viewpoint. I’ve drawn carefully from different sources, ranging from anthropologists to religious scholars to the Bible itself.

I think I’ve offered a number of fairly cogent arguments to no avail.

In my introspection, I must have lost track of where I was going. Looking around, I found that I was surrounded by an unfamiliar forest. What was this place?

I was soon confronted by a trio of preternatural creatures, one after the other: the Leopard of Dyspepsia, the Lion of Disembowelment and an incontinent she-wolf.

Imagine my dismay. These wild apparitions drove me further into the darkness. Finally, I stopped, gasping for breath on the brink of despair.

“Hola,” came a voice, several steps ahead of me.

“Who’s there?” I stammered.

A shadowy figure emerged from behind a tree. “James, it’s me, your old poetry professor, Virgil Alighieri. I’ve come back from the dead to take you on a tour through the nether regions of hell and the upper realm of paradise, with a brief layover in purgatory. How ’bout it?”

“Groovy!”

Well, I can’t go into the details of so grand an allegorical passage in this brief column. Suffice it to say, it was one wild ride. Full of surprises, too! Which brings me to the point: it seems I need to recant my previous two columns.

It turns out that the nine circles of hell are populated by plenty of decent people after all! Who knew?

There were many homosexuals in hell, from Alexander the Great to Rock Hudson to Oscar Wilde. Also among hell’s residents was the most successful artist of all time, Michelangelo di Buonarroti.

A demon was screeching at him as he sealed the artist in molten marble:

“You can paint all the chapel ceilings you want and sculpt as many tombs for as many popes as the Church churns out, but you can’t hide from Jesus, you light-loafered loser!

And Jews? Oi! Hell’s got more Jews than Pharaoh ever dreamed of having: Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Sammy Davis Jr. and my favorite, little Annie Frank. God’s voice boomed down from heaven: “That’s what you get for telling us our crucifix is an idol, you nutty, meshugah insects!”

Other notables included Malcolm X, Karl Marx, several Dalai Lamas, Native Americans and Mohandas K. Gandhi.

This proved you can free a nation and teach people to resist oppression without resorting to violence or murder, but if you ain’t baptized in Christ, you’re gettin’ baptized in flames.

Purgatory was bizarre, just a lot of people dancing around to calypso music. Harry Belafonte was singing “Limbo like me,” and people were lining up, dancing under that silly beam. Virgil and I decided not to linger.

Heaven turned out to be as big a surprise as hell had been. There we visited with such famous Christians as Adolf Hitler and the Spanish inquisitor, Torquemada. They were playing bridge with St. Peter and Mother Theresa.

Hitler was complaining that no one remembered his swastika as a variation of the crucifix.

We saw a number of KKK Grand Wizards and witch-burning Puritans. It was like a convention, really.

They were sitting up on the beautiful white porch of a heavenly mansion, sipping lemonade and eating kiwi and ambrosia while kibitzing with St. Francis of Assisi and Fred Phelps.

“Well,” I said, turning to Virgil, “I’ll be damned.”

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James O’Donnell is a graduate student in painting, drawing and printmaking from Mesa, Ariz.