Before I start, I should make one thing clear. I would rather be run over by a bus — a bus that was on fire — than marry my boyfriend.
Don’t get me wrong: Scott and I been together for a decade (longer than any heterosexual couple our age, not that we’re counting or anything) and I clearly adore the bastard. Hell, when he doesn’t shave for a week and serves me breakfast in bed half-naked, I’d even go so far as to say that I love him.
Still, the prospect of a wedding — the stress, the cost, being photographed a million times and making out in front of relatives — really doesn’t appeal to either of us.
The average Australian wedding costs $50,000 and if I had that kind of money, I’d rather buy, say, a round-the-world plane ticket. In fact, doing the maths, I could buy more than 20 tickets.
We’d bring our friends! And maybe buy drugs!
Still, none of this makes me anti-wedding though. Because hot damn, I love me a good hitchin’. And it isn’t just about the free alcohol. (It’s mainly about the free alcohol.)
I genuinely love the pageantry of the whole thing — dressing up in suits and gowns, adjusting my boyfriend’s tie before we arrive and seeing my friends at their most beautiful. Weddings makes me feel grown up.
I am humbled by my friends’ public declaration of love, weep openly during their vows, and when I see the bride and groom’s families do the same thing, it triggers even more snot-nosed heaving. It is a glamorous thing. You should see me in action.
Still, when the celebrant has to do the whole “man and woman, to the exclusion of all others” spiel, I start gagging a little. Marriage celebrants are good people, who’ve sought out a vocation where they officiate and write into law the binding love between people. And maybe it’s my imagination, but I can tell they’re pretty grossed out by the current state of the Marriage Act too.
God knows, if there’s any one segment of society who knows how to throw a shit-hot party, it’s the homos. And yet, we’re excluded from all this for reasons that — in Australia, especially — are entirely baffling.
It’s a tired argument, but LGBT Australians pay our taxes like everyone else. Since Rudd’s reforms in 2009, same-sex partners have been considered the same as opposite-sex partners with taxes and finances, and our partners’ incomes have been taken into account to calculate Centrelink benefits, sometimes to our financial detriment.
Equality, of course, always comes at a price. But it seems unfair to pay that price without actually achieving total equality.
Things are changing though. In Australia, same-sex marriage is inevitable: 80 percent of young Australians between 18 and 24 want to see it happen.
And it shouldn’t be a religious issue when 53 percent of Australian Christians support the move too. (Note to the mainstream media: the ACL doesn’t represent the majority of Australian Christians. Here’s another idea: speak to some LGBT Christians once in a while.)
With those figures, what shits me most about the “gay marriage debate” is that a debate even exists. To the naysayers, I say hold off on your faux concern for the children. If it’s kids you really care about, you’ll have read the American studies published in Time that suggest kids raised by lesbians are actually more well-adjusted than their peers.
Worried that same-sex marriage will affect straight marriage? Unless your marriage daughters are secretly hungry for tang, you don’t have anything to worry about! (Yes, I’m talking to you, Barnaby and Tony.)
Let’s make this happen, because — at the very least — LGBT Australians are kind of exhausted. A lot of us are tired of marching. We’re tired of writing stories like this. We don’t want to protest any more, because no protest should exist when we’ve got the majority of Australians backing us on this. We don’t want to sign any more petitions, because they’ve been signed already.
We’d rather spend our weekends at the markets, or at the movies, or having robust sessions of homosexual intercourse. This debate is getting in the way of us pursuing those far more interesting activities. Let’s pass this motherfucker and move on.
For me, marriage is less about a celebration of love than a celebration of monogamy, and that is absolutely fine. It’s not for me, but when my friends — straight or queer — want to get married, I want them to get married too. If the children of gay and lesbian parents want their parents to get married, I want those parents to have the option.
It’s not the only fight LGBT Australians should be fighting, but it’s an important one.
One day, I might want to live overseas. Perhaps it’ll be easier for my boyfriend to get a visa, or the other way around.
If marriage would allow us the same immigration rights as any other married couple, we might consider getting married too. Right now, it isn’t an option.
None of this debate is purely symbolic. A lot of it is practical. And apart from being fabulous, our community has always been a practical bunch.
By BENJAMIN LAW
INFO: Memoirist Benjamin Law, author of the 2010 book The Family Law, will appear at the Why Get Married When You Could Be Happy? forum on same-sex marriage, Saturday, May 19, 6pm at Sydney Town Hall for the Sydney Writers’ Festival. A shorter version of this story originally appeared in Frankie magazine.
Photo: Tammy Law
[…] with prospective celebrants on this one small clause for years, and wedding guests have been “gagging a little” at its utterance for just as […]
Compare the two couples. Same super company, one has a Binding Nomination Form, the other does not. If a partner dies, and the couple is married, they are covered. The couple that is not married must have the form filled out, or they can fight the relatives for the loot. You see private super can still legally discriminate. Despite the Wonder Wash of Kevin07, some stains are stubborn. Even if you tick the box for your partner, without that extra form that companies do not automatically give out, you could have a bucket of stinking hate poured over you in a time of immense Grief, as non married couples are deemed less by some super companies. But with over 1084 laws that are referenced by the Marriage Act, Wonder Wash was never going to remove all stains. Life is hard and dirty at times and does not always go as planned. In this land of plenty, some of us are not given the access to the Marriage Rewards Club, just that Wonder Wash of Kevin07, and the Chinese Whispers that Kevin07 can remove any stain.
https://starobserver.com.au/news/australia-news/new-south-wales-news/2009/03/31/man-denied-partners-superannuation/5263
https://starobserver.com.au/news/australia-news/new-south-wales-news/2008/10/22/private-super-dodges-equality/2321
While I cringe at the extent of some wedding ceremonies. I had a civil partnership with my partner, it was a small civilised day with about half a dozen close friends. No pomp, no ceremony just a beautiful lunch and drinks afterwards. Just a commitment of our relationship.
A wedding does not have to be an expensive or extravagant affair. Let’s just focus on changing the law than on sensational commentary and book promotions.
Great piece Ben. Enjoyed reading!
Thanks for a great article – and I’d like to pipe in and confirm that a lot of Marriage Celebrants do support relationship equality. And I am one of them.
I became a celebrant after my own wedding, which was in April 2004, just prior to John Howard “strengthening” the marriage act. The monitum (the really insulting bit of the ceremony that is required by law) was not said at our ceremony, and if it had been, I doubt that we would be married now.
Training to be a celebrant was something that I felt I could do in preparation for the law changing, so that I could marry my friends, so that I could support and honour love, and prepare ceremonies that reflected the passion, creativity and personality of newlyweds, as well as their love and commitment.
As a celebrant, I have lobbied politicians, travelled to Canberra for a national day of action, and marched in every rally that I could.
And I can’t wait till the day that every Australian has the right to marry the person they love.
I agreed in some respects. And I feel exactly the same way.
But I do worry over using the “but the public support us” argument. What if ideals shift again, should our rights be taken away? And clearly majority opinion should always been listened to over that of the minority; because as most Americans can agree, the Iraq war was a great idea, right?
Our rights are not up for public debate. No matter if everyone agrees or its just a few of us; we deserved the same rights no matter what others say. But I too am over this being an issue. Can’t we just change a few words and then move onto more important things?
Wow, am I the only straight person who read this?
I love the angle you’ve taken, and you’re absolutely right, though I do believe in all the marriage vows for the sake of LGBT
‘man and woman’ should be optional.
But you’re right, a debate implies that it could go either way, but the only question left is ‘do you want to be remembered as a rosa parks? or some skinhead who refused to accept equality’?
I agree with all the comments. It is not about LGBT couples wanting to get married it is about our choice to do so if we wish and to be given all the same respect and benefits befitting any Hetro couple. In particular being able to pass on benefits should we pass on. I have been with my man for 23 years and as an ex serviceman I am unable to pass on my pension and the benefits derived from that to him. Sure I can pass on other legacies but it’s about equality and fairness and what is right in this day and age. After 23 years nobody is ever going to tell me we are not “Married” and we didn’t need any pomp and ceremony to do it but we just want the choice and to be able to look after our loved ones when we go and our antiquated bigoted laws and politicians ( who we vote for I might add)won’t allow it- Wake up Australia
Great read, Ben! One of the better articles I’ve read in some time, truth be told.
Agree wholeheartedly! It’s become tiring that we’re still having this discussion in 2012, when we could clearly be doing more fabulous things. Gay things. You know; like baking cupcakes, fornicating, or playing Draw Something with our unicorns.
C’mon Australia! The overwhelming majority of Australians support same-sex marriage. This debate has become an embarrassing indictment on our great land, girt by sea. The bigoted, paranoid, ghosts of the anti-everything brigade are trite and out of touch. Why are our pollies not listening to what “whurking Austraylian families” actually want?
The paradigm has shifted, people. Time to catch up with the rest of the world!
Unless we’ve got it all wrong and Gillard and Abbott actually have something against unicorns. Because that would make far more sense – everyone knows unicorns can’t draw.
You’re right about us throwing good parties Benjamin. And some people do just that through the many marriage celebrants that advertise same-sex ceremonies. So what’s the problem? The government won’t rubber stamp it? A few decades ago the fight was to take the law off our lives, it’s rather perverse to now aks for laws licensing our private lives. It’s the 21st century and I’d say it’s none of the governement’s business.
I cringe too Benjamin, but not just at the ‘man and woman’ bit. The whole phrase is: ‘the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.’ The only rational part of that statement is ‘voluntarily’. Yet the only proposed change is to ‘a man and woman’. Why isn’t all this media attention and public sentiment directed into modernising the law so it relflects how relationships really operate? Now that would be a debate by a practical bunch of people.