I went to a marvellous party on the weekend. Well, more like a wedding really. A marriage of two friends we have all considered a unit for as long as we have known them. Two friends that, had they split, it would have knocked the wind out of us and hurt us deeply. Two friends that, when they announced their intention, we all embraced and cheered and celebrated their impending union with a few muttered asides of “About bloody time!”
But though it was like a wedding, it wasn’t actually a wedding. Not for my two male friends here in 21st century Sydney. And though I have always be in favour of legal recognition of gay marriage, mainly because I couldn’t see it affecting me one way or the other and because those who wanted it seemed to want it quite badly, I have never really though about it at all.
But over the past few days I have though about it. And the more I have thought about it the more certain I have become that withholding legal recognition from this union is indefensible.
It is wrong, unjust and it hurts us all.
It's important to get to the nub of the injustice and why it rankles.
Our sexuality is the least interesting thing about us, only of concern to those closest to us who have an interest in caring for those that we care deeply about. We are infinitely more captivated by a person’s preference for Bach, Beethoven, Dostoyevsky or Diaghilev than their preference for feathers or leather. And yet a vast minority live with constant pressure to subjugate this small vital part of themselves that they must not suppress if they are to live honest lives.
Today, thank god, it's rarely a stab in the face that greets the transgression of public homosexuality; it’s more often a sudden, unexpected jab in the side or the constant burning rub of a stone in the shoe.
Marriage is, fundamentally and historically, a property contract; a legal binding agreement that clearly defines succession of property and hereditary titles. It had its genesis in feudal societies where uncertainty of succession led to societal unrest and disorder.
In the past a marriage ceremony was for the ruling classes. For the lower classes, a simple private declaration, consummated in bed, occasionally recognised by a blessing in the church porch, was considered more than adequate as they had nothing to succeed but hungry offspring.
In the 19th century, the desire of the rising middle classes to ape their betters led to the crystallisation of the 'modern' wedding ceremony, leaving us with the Edwardian dress still favoured by many. The rise of the novel in the 18th and 19th century, further romanticised marriage and weddings, aided and abetted in the 20th century by Hollywood's depictions of what a wedding should be (an egregious example: the popularisation of the diamond engagement ring was a deliberate marketing ploy by DeBeers using Hollywood starlets).
Where does this leave us? If we strip back the layers, back to the foundations of marriage as a property contract, we both identify the root of the injustice and remove the cause of much public outcry.
The bigoted, those with a lack of empathy or imagination, or simply those whose religious or world view will not allow them to admit that a homosexual partnership has an equivalency to their own, can not possibly take issue with the wishes of a person to distribute their property as they see fit.
But what of love, compassion, romance, the merging of souls? This we do ourselves, sometimes despite ourselves. It is not the domain of others, least of all church or state.
But what of societal recognition and acceptance? From our friends and loved ones we expect no less. It is the broader, more subtle support, sometimes overt, often tacit, given to heterosexual couples who declare themselves married to bellhops, waiters, clerks, supermarket assistants, employers and work colleagues that is rarely offered and coldly withdrawn from a homosexual couple.
It is this constant vacuum, this cold, sterile landscape that exists outside of the dome of our close friends and family, that I as a married heterosexual, have the most difficulty imagining. I am not sure that extending to all people the right to distribute their property as they wish will terraform the landscape outside our carefully cultivated biospheres but it may be a start.
It will be the seed of a beginning. A small message of acceptance, perhaps delivered shamefaced with a mumbled apology for not speaking sooner. A speck of lichen on a rock, that given enough time, turns rock to soil, gasses to atmosphere and lets all of us step outside and breath.
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