Guest Posts for Equality: David Norris says YES

In the run-up to Ireland’s Marriage Equality referendum on May 22nd, I’ve invited a series of guest posters– people from Ireland or who live here, of many different backgrounds and orientations- to share their thoughts on the referendum, the campaign, and what it means to them. Contributions to Guest Posts for Equality are welcome- drop me a message

A friend of mine ran into Senator David Norris on the train this week. Naturally enough, he was eager to ask him some questions about the referendum- not that there’d be any doubt over what Norris’s position! But here’s what he had to say:

Guest Posts for Equality: David Norris says YES
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They Were Right: This referendum is not (just) about marriage.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get married.

That’s not, by the way, anything to do with my being queer. I don’t know if I’ll ever get married, because I don’t know if I want to get married, and because I haven’t found myself in the kind of relationship that marriage would make sense with. I don’t know if twenty years from now I’ll be married, single, living with my three favourite partners, or traveling the world in a refurbished double-decker bus with a giant ginger cat.

I can tell you, though, that the last of those is the one I spend the most time daydreaming about.

Of course, maybe me and my giant ginger cat won’t be on our own in our double-decker bus (with a balcony taking up half of the top level where I keep my plants. Of course). Maybe we will.

I don’t really care about getting married, myself. If I find someone I want to be with for the rest of my life, then we’ll do that regardless of whether the state calls it a marriage, and it’ll mean every bit as much to the two of us. I do care deeply about the legal rights that come with marriage, and about being able to protect my loved ones and have the families that we create legally recognised. Marriage might do that. It might not. I don’t know what shape my family will be, in ten or twenty years. I’m ambivalent about marriage as an institution. I don’t like the idea that the state can privilege one kind of family and relationship over all others, giving some families (specifically, those based on lifelong monogamous dyadic relationships, if we’re getting technical about things) rights that others don’t have. It is abhorrent to me that the state has the  power to name this a family and that legal strangers, and that we have no way to change this. If we have to have legal definitions of family, I want one that is inclusive of all kinds of families. Of all of the bonds of kinship that we create. If we have to legally encode these things, I want a structure that is flexible. One that doesn’t prescribe one kind of ideal relationship, but instead accurately describes the relationships and families that we do have.

I’m one of those queers your mum probably didn’t know enough to warn you about. The ones who have no interest in emulating heteronormativity and think that, frankly, society as a whole would do well to learn from what we’ve been up to over the decades.

Like I said? I’m ambivalent about marriage.

Yet if this May’s referendum is defeated? I’m not sure how I’ll stand it.

Continue reading “They Were Right: This referendum is not (just) about marriage.”

They Were Right: This referendum is not (just) about marriage.

Inevitable does not mean Okay: Respectability Politics, Erasure and Marriage Equality

Campaigns on both sides of the marriage equality debate have begun in earnest in recent weeks. On the No side, there are the predictable demonising of queer people, pleas to some kind of imaginary distinctiveness and special status of heterosexuality, and misguided calls to please protect the children. The actual children of same-sex couples are, of course, on the other side defending their parents and families from those who would seek to explicitly deny them. As, of course are people of all orientations and family situations telling their stories and asking for equal treatment.

So far, so good. The humanity of queer people- and the families and friends who love us- is what will win this referendum.

But marriage equality, far from being the universal arbiter of LGBTQ equality, is a single issue. And single issue questions breed single issue conversations. 

This is not always a bad thing. It feels inevitable that a narrowing of focus occurs when large groups of people are asked a particular question. And it’s definitely not a bad thing that an important LGBTQ issue is getting significant mainstream attention. 

A thing feeling inevitable doesn’t make it okay.

There are two negative impacts that this narrowing of focus has had. It’s meant that inconvenient facts get brushed under the carpet ‘for the time being’. Those queer people whose lives fit a respectable marriage narrative are showcased- and that is lovely. There are many wonderful queer couples who want to marry in this country. The narrative of queer couples falling in love and marrying is one that has never really hit the mainstream in this country until now. Much as those of us of a more radical persuasion would prefer marriage to not be a focus, there’s nothing about being born LGBT that leads to any particular political viewpoint. There are plenty of queer kids growing up who need to know that some kind of mainstream acceptance- fulfilling the same dreams as their peers, having the possibility of a future that doesn’t seem utterly alien- is possible. Continue reading “Inevitable does not mean Okay: Respectability Politics, Erasure and Marriage Equality”

Inevitable does not mean Okay: Respectability Politics, Erasure and Marriage Equality

Arguing for Marriage Equality: Engagement over Debate

I love a good argument as much as the next person. There’s something glorious about a perfectly placed point and the delicious combination of wit and incontrovertible evidence that feels so damn satisfying. Watch your opponents crumble before your logic. High five with your friends. Or, if it’s a friend you’re arguing with, high five anyway and make them buy you a beer for the privilege. Good times.

That said, I can’t remember the last time I argued someone- particularly a someone who I didn’t have a preexisting connection with- into agreeing with me. Most of the time being argued with just gets your back up, makes you feel attacked and digs you even more firmly into the position you already held- particularly if the position is one that you had an emotional attachment to. And, in fairness, if you didn’t feel attached to your position it’s not likely that you’d have bothered arguing it in the first place, is it?

This isn’t an intellectual exercise. This is something that is becoming incredibly important in Ireland right now. It’s a little over two months until the marriage equality referendum here in Ireland, and the No campaign have already started resorting to every dirty trick they can muster in order to scare people into voting with them. Supporters of equality already have facts, arguments and research on our side. Those aren’t going to be enough. Continue reading “Arguing for Marriage Equality: Engagement over Debate”

Arguing for Marriage Equality: Engagement over Debate

‘Winning the War’ for Marriage Equality?

Love, Joy, Feminism is one of my favourite blogs, and has been for a long time. Libby Anne’s writing has a wonderful combination of clarity and empathy that I always look forward to reading. A couple of weeks month or so ago (can you tell I’m a little behind on responding to things?) she wrote about marriage equality. Hardline anti-LGBTQ US evangelicals are losing support for their position not only in the general population, but in Millennials within their own communities. There’s some lovely looking graphs at her post, by the way- go check it out!

Libby Anne describes this, happily, as anti-LGBTQ evangelicals losing not only the individual state ‘battles’ against equality, but the ‘war’ as well. If we’re talking about marriage equality in the United States, this is undoubtedly true. If you widen your lens to take in my own Western Europe as well as some parts of South America, it stays that way. In these parts of the world more LGBT people are entitled either to legal equality- or at the very least some legal protections- than ever before.

Does that mean we’re winning the war, though? I’m not sure. But it definitely doesn’t mean that it’s okay to see “marriage equality throughout the United States” as the war that needs to be won. It doesn’t even mean that “marriage equality throughout the United States” is the war that needs to be won by USians.

There’s a parochialism to a lot of USian thought. You have a massive country that has been exercising a cultural dominance (among other things) over huge swathes of the rest of the world for decades. Lifetimes, even. Like all social relations borne of inequality, we in the rest of the world pay a lot more attention to you than you do to us. We know more about you than vice-versa. Non-USians internalise US concerns and understand some of the nuances of US culture(s) in a way that is not reciprocated.

Not reciprocated, that is, in all ways except one. The average USian doesn’t have the understanding of Irish (or German, Argentinian, Ugandan or Thai) politics and society that we do of yours, but this hasn’t stopped the US from actively interfering in other countries. Sometimes this is overt militarism. Sometimes it’s more subtle, but no less real. Take here in Ireland, where antichoice forces are bankrolled by American backers. People who have never met us campaigning for laws that will never affect them. Similarly, when you look outside your borders you can see that many homophobic USian fundamentalist evangelicals have set their sights outside your country and are busy interfering elsewhere to drum up homophobia, transphobia, and legal and physical violence against LGBTQ people. It’s not that the war is being won. Battles may be being won, but front lines don’t end at a particular nation’s border. The war is shifting, being taken by USians to places where most USians aren’t even looking.

The progress made in Western and Central Europe, the Americas and Australia on marriage equality and other LGBTQ+ rights and protections is incredible, although even in these parts of the world we’ve a long way to go. There are battles being won. But the rest of the world- Eastern Europe, Asia, the vast majority of Africa and the Middle East- matter every bit as much. Especially when Western forces have been interfering in most of these parts world for centuries, we don’t get to wash out hands of the results of our ongoing interference. Ever.

The war is nowhere close to being won.

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‘Winning the War’ for Marriage Equality?

Equality, already!

There’s a lot of reasons to support marriage equality. Respect for human dignity. Excuses to wear fancy hats. Recognising and valuing love and commitment. Giving your assorted aunts a day out. Thousands of legal rights and responsibilities. Cake.

I’ve got one more.

Every time I watch a marriage equality video, I cry.

I’m not talking a single dignified tear. It starts a few seconds in with that tear. By the end of a 3-minute video, the tear has been joined by its sisters, brothers, cousins, friends, old babysitters, and everyone who’s ever worked at its favourite cafes. What I’m trying to say here is that marriage equality videos- every single damn one of them- make me bawl. I’m crying right now just thinking of ’em.

In fairness, I cry at straight couples getting married too, but I have to actually know the people involved. Show me an old queer couple that I’ve never met and tell me that they’ve been waiting longer than I’ve been alive to have their relationship recognised, though? You’d better have brought a stack of tissues with you, ’cause I’ll be sobbing before you can get the words out.

This is a problem. Sometimes I have to appear professional. Like a grown-up in control of herself who won’t turn into a teary mess in seconds. The only way that I can see to deal with this is for every country, everywhere, to get off their asses and legislate for equal marriage- preferably on an evening or weekend, so there’ll be no problem with me hiding under a blanket with a bucket of icecream. Let’s get this out of the way in a morning, have our happy cry, and then get on with things.

In the meantime, check these out. You can try to tell me you’re not moved if you like, but I won’t believe you.

If you were to fancy throwing any links into the comments that’ll make me ugly-cry? I’d probably complain, but I’d also watch every sniffly one of them.

 

Equality, already!

Why Marriage Equality Should Matter To Straight People

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Marriage equality. Same-sex marriage. Gay marriage. Whatever you call it, it’s kind of a big deal these days. We hear a lot about why it matters to LGBTQ folks- that pesky equality thing, being treated with the same dignity and rights as others, protecting our families, having nice days out with excellent hats. But, as every LGBTQer will tell you, most people aren’t queer. Most of you are raging heterosexualists. And those of you of a heterosexual persuasion might sometimes wonder what, precisely, is in it for you? Why should you leave your warm, comfortable sofa and take to the streets for the rights of a bunch of strangers?

As it turns out? A lot of reasons. Here’s a few of mine:

1. You Want To Marry People Who Love You Back, Right?

Have you ever met someone who started off LGBT, was oppressed for it, and genuinely turned straight? I haven’t. As a wise man once said, “there ain’t no cure for love“.

Discrimination against queer people has never stopped us from being queer. What it has done is force people into the closet and into relationships with people that they might love, but they can never really love. If you want to be sure that the person who you marry is someone who feels as much for you as you do for them? Make sure that people can marry the ones they love.

2. The Infertility Thing

A bunch of the arguments against marriage equality go something like this: While two people of any gender can share love and devotion, it’s only the physical union of one (cis, though they never mention it) man and one (cis, though they never mention it) woman that can physically create a child, and it is in the interests of society to support this.

Let’s leave aside the kinda-bizarre implication that we want, as a society, to support LGBT people getting into different-sex marriages. It shouldn’t be difficult to see what’s intrinsically wrong with that.

Not all straight people can have kids- biologically, at least- with each other. Not all straight people want to have kids. If marriage is only for people who can physically create a child with each other, then what about infertile people? Post-menopausal women should be banned from marrying anyone at all, and childfree people consigned to civil unions at best. Fertility tests would be mandatory before marriage licences, and marriages that don’t produce children within a couple of years would be annulled.

Sounds ridiculous, eh? It is ridiculous. And it’s not going to happen. But think about it: do you want your marriages to be defined by whether you have children or not? Do you want to be seen as less valuable if you choose not to have kids? Do you want infertile people to be shamed, do you think it’s okay if their relationships are seen as lesser?

If you accept the idea that different-sex marriages are better because lots of people in them can have kids without any outside help (and even by accident), then you accept the idea that having kids somehow makes a relationship.. better. Do you want your relationships defined by whether or not you can physically make a kid with the person you love?

I figured not.

3. It’s about family and community.

LGBT people don’t live in a world separate from everyone else. Maybe your kid is LGBT. Maybe it’s your parent. Or your aunt or your uncle. Maybe your cousin or your sibling. Either way, chances are that there’s at least someone in your circles who’s not entirely straight & cis. We’re part of your families, we’re your friends, we live in your communities. Do you want some of the people you love to be treated as if they were less than others? Isn’t it a little… awkward?

4. It’s About Love

Anti-marriage equality advocates would have you believe that marriage is about anything- anything– other than two people who love each other making a lifelong commitment to each other. They say that it’s about babies- ignoring the many thousands of kids raised by loving same-sex couples. They say that it has nothing to do with love, and that marriage is by definition something between one man and one woman, without giving reasons why. Anti-equality advocates would say that your genitals (which they overwhelmingly feel are directly tied to your gender) are the most important defining feature of the love you share.

Don’t you think that your relationships and marriages are worth more than that? If you love someone, isn’t that love about far more than one of you being A Man and one of you being A Woman? Those of us who advocate for marriage equality say that love is something between you and the unique individual that you love. We say that love doesn’t need to keep anything else down to be special- it’s beautiful just as it is.

These were just what I came up with. Can you think of any more? What’ve I missed?

Why Marriage Equality Should Matter To Straight People

Marriage and the Homos: I get comments

I woke up this morning to the following comment in my mod queue:

A true cynic will criticize everyone, both the majority and the minority. I oppose homosexuality, and I blame heterosexuals for promoting it implicitly by their own increasingly pleasure-seeking sexual activity.

http://agalltyr.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/gay-marriage-is-bad-for-society-and-so-are-condoms-and-porn/

To have a meaningful life, do not seek pleasure. Instead seek meaning and purpose. Homosexuality, like many forms of heterosexuality, has no real purpose.

While this comment is ridiculous and the blog the commenter links to even more so, I would like to engage with some of the ideas he brings up

Seeking Pleasure and Meaning

Matthew’s accusation towards us queermos (and a lot of you straight people out there!) is that we get into relationships for no good reason other than pleasure.

Guilty as charged.

While my relationship with the Ladyfriend brings many wonderful things into my life, the primary reason that I’m with her? Happiness. She makes me smile the kind of smile that feels like it goes past my face and under my ribs all the way to my frickin’ toes. Everything else stems from that. I work on our relationship, through our differences, to be the best partner I can be because being around her makes me really, really happy.

And y’know what? That’s precisely the same reason that straight people do exactly the same thing. We make each other happy. Happiness and pleasure aren’t different to meaning- they’re part of meaning. Sharing pleasure, joy and fulfilment are a huge part of what makes our lives meaningful. Following the things which bring you most joy is, in my view, one of the best ways to figure out what your life should mean.

No real purpose?

Matthew would have us think that homosexuality is purposeless, as is, I assume, any hetero relationship that doesn’t involve children.

Take a moment. Think about the people you love. Think about the ways they enrich your life. How they encourage you to follow your dreams. How you are inspired to be a better person by their example and presence. How much learning is involved in sharing your life with others. The ways that you help each other through hard times and share your happinesses. All of the innumerable ways in which the people you love make your life a hell of a lot better than it otherwise could ever be.

That’s purpose. That’s what our relationships are for– they’re an end in themselves. The good things about relationships are, well, the good things about relationships. If Matthew has never had a loved one support him through a tough time, or phoned up someone to share good news, or kicked back with a friend to enjoy a hobby, then I feel sorry for him. If he has, though, then he knows full well that relationships are important just as they are.

Marriage and the Homos: I get comments

Every Equal Marriage Debate Ever

So I promised myself I’d take weekends off from blogging from now on. I think if it’s ever going to work I’m gonna have to lock myself away from all kinds of news and media from midday Friday until Monday morning, because I just can’t seem to keep away.

I’m always amazed when I watch debates between marriage equality advocates and opponents.

What happens, you see, is that you have an opponent claiming that marriage must be kept solely between people of different legal genders in order to protect children.

Then, inevitably, a parent raising kids in a same-sex partnership and an adult who was raised by two mums or two dads talk about their experiences of having done just fine, thank you very much, except for having their kids/parent considered a legal stranger to them.

Opponents ignore these people standing in front of them and rattle on about complementarity without actually mentioning what precisely is to be complemented, while waving discredited studies about.

Advocates come back with actual statistics regarding those studies and go into precisely why they were discredited.

An opponent tells everyone that the problem is that we’re all getting far too over-emotional and can’t we just look at this logically and dispassionately and decide that men and women are the only people who can get married without all those pesky ‘feelings’ getting in the way.

Then, in a moment that had me wanting to get up from my sofa and clap wildly, George Hook comes in all guns blazing like the legend that he is: “How can Gerry Fahy say that I’m emotional about the greatest emotion of all- love? Of course I’m emotional about love! It’s an emotional thing! And you can’t expect like.. if Ingrid thought for a moment that at any point in the last forty years I wasn’t emotional about her, she’d show me the door!”

It was a beautiful thing.

If you fancy seeing anti-equality “forces” getting trounced on national TV- and let’s face it, who doesn’t- hop over to the Late Late and start at 1:17. I’m sorry that I can’t seem to embed it- if anyone knows if/how to get RTE vids embedded, let me know!

Every Equal Marriage Debate Ever

Why Marriage Equality Matters To Me

They say that every little girl dreams of her wedding day. I didn’t. I dreamed of spaceships and faraway planets, about eking out a life on deserted islands, about robots and post-apocalyptic worlds and deep-sea diving. A wedding wasn’t a dream come true for me. Not like the first time I strapped myself into SCUBA gear and slipped into another world.

While I’ve changed a lot from that little girl who dreamed of outer space and deep-sea exploration, I’m not much different in many ways. I still dream of exploration and discovery. Every time a plane I’m on takes off I’m still secretly thrilled. And though I don’t get to dive as much as I’d like, I still soak up everything I can learn about the places I’ve never been.  I still have lazy daydreams of Mars.

I was never a girl who dreamed of her wedding day. And while I can’t say that I’ve never daydreamed about promising to share my life with someone I love, getting married is still not the first thing on my bucket list. As a poly person, especially, it seems like the kind of thing I’d have to put an inordinate amount of deliberation into. How could I make a promise to one person knowing that it meant I could never promise the same thing to anyone else? How could I ask a partner to hold me above all others?

I’m not a woman who dreams about marriage. Sharing my life with my chosen family? Splendid! A great big party to celebrate the love that we share? Spiffing! But I’m not sure that marriage is for me*.

It still matters.

Valuing Choices

Whether I or you choose a particular thing or not there is something immensely important about the freedom to decide. Choosing to have children or not, to pursue a particular career or hobby or not. I’m immensely aware that, say, the freedom to choose a career is something that was for far too long circumscribed by gender. And that it’s still often circumscribed by class. Whether I want to be a carer or a chemist, to have no children or a dozen or just one or two, the ability to decide the course of my life can’t be overvalued. We have this one life. It’s the most precious thing we will ever have.

Choosing to share your life with another person or people is one of the most important things that any of us will do. We are what we think and feel, what we do, and the networks of people within which we live. Society isn’t something apart from all of that. It’s the sum of many smaller interconnected people and networks. It’s part of us. We’re all part of us. And whether we as a society value the ways that people choose to follow their hearts and live their lives matters.

Neither ‘tolerance’ nor ‘acceptance’

It is immensely important to me that my society can value what I- a childless, unmarried woman- contribute. It is immensely important to me that those choices are valued equally with the choices of others to have and raise children, to devote their time to caring for others. Sure, we can all just go ahead and do the things that we want to do regardless of the opinions of others. But the vast majority of us care what others think. Whether we like to admit it or not, the opinions of others matter to us. We do crave validation and respect. We don’t want our lives to be met with sidelong glances.

Even if I choose not to marry, being able to do so regardless of the gender of my partner(s) has huge symbolic value. Denial of marriage equality isn’t just saying that I can’t access a particular contract. It says directly that my society feels that there is something missing, something inferior about same-sex relationships.

Whether I choose to marry or not, I will not accept the profound insult inherent in this.

I want to know that even if I do not choose to marry, my relationships are valued equally regardless of the gender of my partner(s). I want to know that I live in a culture that does not merely tolerate or accept the love that I feel and the relationships that I build, but celebrates relationships regardless of gender. I want a culture that values everything from the tongue-tied nerves of giddy crushes to the sweet familiarity of years of devotion. I want a culture that celebrates what partnerships bring to our lives- love, support, joy, knowing that someone is on your side whatever you go through, deep understanding, working together for mutual happiness, strengthening ties, caring for others and so much more. I don’t want a culture that tolerates that. I want one that thinks it is bloody brilliant.

Marriage equality doesn’t mean that every person in the country celebrates love equally. But it means that enough people do that we have collectively decided to make a point of enshrining equality in our laws.

And that? Whether you or I or the person next to you marries or not, and whatever the gender of the person or people they love? That matters.

*of course, because I wrote this I’ll probably be merrily skipping down to the local city hall before you can say “eat my words”. Which is what you get for writing things on the internet.

Why Marriage Equality Matters To Me