I keep feeling like I’m missing something. Like there’s a piece of the puzzle that’s fallen under the table and I haven’t noticed. That one day I’ll be wandering past and I’ll see that the piece is right there, camouflaged in the berber, and it’ll make sense. It will click. Oh, I get it! That’s why gay couples can’t legally marry. Now I understand.
I’m waiting for someone to explain the technicality, the legal ramifications, the money it would cost the government to change. I mean there has to be more to it, right?
Surely if we can now recognize and openly discuss that our community is a mix of both gay and straight soldiers, nurses, teachers, doctors, farmers, lawyers, hairdressers and politicians – we can also now accept that everyone in the community has equal rights.
For the longest time I assumed it was because Australia was being run by a conservative government. And then the government changed. I figured things would change in time, and as a heterosexual married mother of four, I have to admit I was complacent. I mean, it didn’t mean anything to me, it wasn’t going to change my life at all.
And then I realized that was the missing piece.
It was the complacency.
My very clever Aunty put it this way “this is not a matter of opinion, this is a matter of human rights”.
Penny Wong showed incredible dignity when the issue was raised on the ABC’s ‘Q and A’ recently. How would you react to a colleague telling you that he felt that you weren’t providing “the very best circumstance” for your children?
“Is it hurtful?”
“Of course it is – but I know what my family’s worth”
Watch her face, see her wince. Yes. It’s hurtful.
I was interested in what the little travelers thoughts were on marriage equality and what they felt would be the very best circumstance to be raised. They were all surprised to hear that you couldn’t get married in Australia if you were gay “but you can in Calgary?” said one of them.
I asked what they would prefer, two Mummies, two Daddies, or a Mummy and a Daddy. The second little traveler rolled her eyes in a stop wasting my time kind of way. “You wouldn’t care would you, because you would want whatever you were born with, because they were the people that chose you”.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
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We’ve always told our kids (aged 4 & 7) they can marry whoever they want as we are hopeful when that time comes for them, the world will have moved on and they can do that.
I had to explain that the government doesn’t always see it as a proper marriage due to watching a youtube clip that’s doing the rounds, as my son was watching it with me. It was hard for him to understand as its against what we had told him.
Yes, they are too young to understand it all, but they see that if 2 people want to get married, so what?
Now as for explaining that in Qatar you can have many wives…. you could just his mind race and say “ewwwww…. girls!!!!
Maybe the kids are better are accepting and the adults have got it wrong.
I hope it continues to tip, tip, tip for the better. Change comes so slowly, we can only add more and more impetus and watch the drip, drip, drip of the tip, tip, tip. I doubt America will ever see another Lydon Johnson to sweep through a civil rights act and social legislation safety nets. This civil right probably won’t happen that way. So, I push for the drip.
I love that kids see these things so simply as a matter of basic human rights and love. It is all it is really, we are not asking for anything more than any other family has, just the same.
You know, in NSW (and maybe the rest of Australia, I’m not sure if other States have this) we(gay couples) can both be listed as the legal parents on our child’s birth certificate, but we cannot legally marry. Children and marriage are 2 entirely separate things, but when our politicians keep talking about the impact on kids when they are expressing their views about marriage equality it always makes me wonder if they know that we are both the legal parents. It also makes me realise they don’t care about these kids because if they did they wouldn’t say such hurtful things about their families.
Many time we adults lack the wisdom of a young child. You have a world leader there for sure, more in the Mahatma kind of way. Bravo second little traveller.
I’m so glad my kids are growing up with healthy relationships all around her, hetero and homosexual. My daughter who is old enough to ask the relevant questions knows that love is all that matters. Ah, the joy, the innocence xx
2nd little traveller has the beautiful simple wisdom that so many of our world politicians would benefit from. You should be proud.
x
People often confuse the right to marry with the right to have children as if the only point to marriage is to procreate. They are separate issues. Of course, they often overlap but marriage isn’t a pre-requisite for child bearing and many married people can’t or choose not to have children. People who are against marriage equality often muddy the water by claiming that the offspring will suffer. The evidence suggests otherwise. In the end, it boils down to a moral judgement not one based on logic or reason. After all you can’t argue with God (or more specifically, those who claim to speak for him) except, we can and we do. The simple wisdom of children is often the most profound.
great post and so true. If only the adult (!!!!) world would see things as simply and clearly as children often do.
Wonderful post and you are raising tolerant kids!! Makes you proud to hear your kids when they speak such wisdom.
Dena
http://itsabouttakingthejourney.blogspot.
Yes, it is our kids we should be asking, and if they had a say,it would long have been decided. So it will change over time, as they get to be the majority and old prejudices die off. To think that so much money and effort is wasted on something that will one day be as crystal clear as equal voting rights, and all those other things that were fought over so long ago. Or, perhaps, we will just revisit all those old battles in a sort of stupid cyclical way? Like women’s rights seem to now be back on the agenda?
Best quote I’ve heard on the matter. Everyone keeps saying that majority doesn’t want it, but I can honestly say I have not heard anyone (other than politicians) against gay marriage. Am I only speaking to the minority? Wouldn’t have thought so.