How a gay friend helped change my mind about same-sex unions It's not that
big a deal to give homosexual couples equal rights, says Louis Jacob
By Louis Jacob
Sunday May 11 2008 If gay couples want to get married, for Christ's
sake, let them. Gay marriage is going to happen someday so let them get on with
it. Last week, I was visiting Kielce, an ultra-conservative city to the south
of Warsaw in Poland, and I experienced what they call a 'moment of clarity'.This
moment occurred while I was talking to a 24-year-old woman who has been
openly homosexual, in a society that is largely hostile to gay couples,
since she was 16. She struck me as a very down-to-earth and brave
character who has had to fight her battles and she made me realise that
far from being something seedy or shameful, being openly gay is more
often than not a mark of extreme courage. Previously
I would have been firmly rooted in the, 'Just get on with it and stop
moaning' camp. But this is too convenient and it is wrong and unfair.
In fact, the most important thing with this issue is to encourage
homosexuals to be open and not to force them into a life of denial and
misery.It's funny, when you are in a place that seems to be a few years behind
Ireland
in the area of social norms, you get that kind of smug feeling of
knowing something that everyone else doesn't. It's kind of amusing to
be around people who think that homosexuality is a mental disorder. But
you see, it's easy to be smug when you are dealing with hindsight. It's
typical of the nature of society that we have to keep these 'norms'
alive because they serve our need to feel better than someone else.
Marriage is 'sacred,' we say, so be gay if you like, there's no problem
there, but just don't go trying to join any of the clubs which are
after all, the cornerstones of society. But you see, social norms are in a
constant state of flux.When
you think about it, all we are doing is depriving gay people of
something that will be perfectly acceptable in the not-too-distant
future, in much the same way that people were deprived of the right to
divorce in Ireland for so long. I think that currently we
are in a state of denial, struggling against the tide of history. I
think that nobody would deny that same-sex marriages are only around
the corner.The hypocrisy of allowing a
same-sex civil union,
but not marriage, is now very apparent to me. There is surely a cruel
irony in the fact that although homosexual relationships are now
socially and legally acceptable, marriage is not. When you
consider that traditionally cohabiting with someone outside of wedlock
would have been considered 'living in sin', it brings home how
unnecessarily complicated is the situation. How we scoff
these days at the idea of cohabiting being described as 'living in
sin'. It's the old hindsight thing again. It really is time to move on.
Is the heterosexual version of marriage such an ivory tower?
I think not. You show me a perfect marriage these days and I'll call
the Vatican and proclaim a miracle. I
myself am 31 years old and getting married has never even entered my
head, so when I hear about two people who love each other and want to
spend the rest of their lives together, I say 'give them a fair crack
at it'.By
the way, I am as sick of gay rights marches and activists as the next
'normal' heterosexual. But surely the way to make them go away is to
give them the same rights as everyone else and that includes the right
to marry. And I think that deep down most of us would admit that it's not as
big an ask as a lot of us like to pretend.My
friend in Kielce made me realise that it is all a question of courage,
and in my book, courage should be rewarded not punished. Maybe
it's time that we took a deep breath, got over ourselves and allowed
same-sex marriage. Maybe then we can all get on with our lives.
- Louis Jacob
