9 Days, 3 Letters - Y.E.S.

Take heart friends, only 9 days to go until May 22nd. Only 9 days left to secure a YES vote, only 9 more days of endless media coverage, only 9 more days of the stench of red herrings, only 9 more days of having our lives dissected and discussed by every member of the country.

I’m not even in the country at the moment and #MarRef is at the forefront of my mind most of the time. The debates are unpleasant to watch (not solely because of the RTE player) and yet I can’t bring myself to switch them off. The arguments are wounding. It is incredibly difficult to listen to someone speak so openly against you and your life. I do not know how the likes of Una Mullally, Colm O’Gorman and myriad other advocates for YES remain so composed in the face of such horror. They are far greater people than I.

I would love nothing more than to go bury my head in the sand for the next 9 days and hope everything goes the right way.

But as a great man once said (and continues to say on an almost daily basis), hope is NOT a strategy. We must be resilient. The final lap is the hardest to run but that is when you win the race and by God I want to win this race.

So turn off the debates, stop compulsively twitter searching #MarRef, stop reading the polls and the articles (after you’ve finished this one), stop trying to take on those staunch no people on Facebook, stop listening to radio debates on surrogacy and adoption. Focus on what you can do. Get involved. Target the people Iona et al are hoping their confusion tactics will work on and speak with them rationally, reassure them, speak with compassion, show them how much this means to you and yours. GO CANVASSING. No one wants to, it is daunting at first but you will meet the most glorious people you can imagine, many of them very attractive and very single and all of them fearless and fierce and fun. The politicians don’t do it for the craic - it works!

Be tough, steel yourself against the negativity, find shelter in friends and loved ones, vent in private. Do not let them under your skin, they do not deserve to be there.

Most of all, do as Sebastian Barry suggests and ‘honour the majesty, radiance and promise’ of our human souls by voting YES. Don’t wake up on May 23rd with regrets. Do everything in your power to ensure this passes.

Please.

Mobilise your Mother

“Don’t mind them - they’re just jealous!”

A token phrase that I heard from my very Irish Mammy at several points throughout my youth, usually in response to some inconsequential slight or minor taunt on the school playground.

I have grown up a lot since then and while I may not need to hear this phrase or be reminded that I should wear a coat when it’s cold outside, my mother continues to pretend that no time has passed. To her I will always be the child in need of protection, encouragement and reminders to wear gloves in the winter. Therein, lies an entire well of untapped resources - The Power of our Mammies.

I was born on June 22nd 1988 which, if you ask my mother, was actually the longest day of that year. The moment I entered this world she had plans for me. She wanted me to be happy and healthy. She wanted me to grow up, to get a good job, to be successful, to get married, to have a family of my own. Nowhere in her plan did me being gay feature. My coming out, while not a complete shock to her, did of course represent a challenge. Not because I was now living a life of sin or because who I am was against the teachings of the Church but because being gay was never in her plan for me. She thought I would now lead a lonely life, never get married or have a family. Suddenly, her hopes and dreams for me seemed less achievable.

She paused for a moment, she gathered her thoughts and she got on with things - in true Irish Mammy style. She educated herself, she realised that all those dreams she had for me were still achievable, just in a different way. She started to enquire as to whether i’d met ‘anyone I liked better than myself.’ And when I did (eventually) find that someone, she welcomed him into her home as she would one of her own children, whispering in my ear, ‘God, he’s very handsome!’ when his back was turned. She tells all our relatives how he’s a ‘lovely chap’ and ‘it’s like he’s been coming here for years.’ I’m starting to wonder does she like him more than she likes me.

10 years ago, my mother would probably have been indifferent to this forthcoming referendum. She may have even been against it. In that time her viewpoint has changed because of the love she has for me.

She will be voting yes and she will be encouraging everyone she knows to vote yes too. For her only son, his friends, his community and his relationships. All of which are worthy of the same constitutional protections as those of her two heterosexual daughters.

And everyone will listen, for there is great power to be found in what mothers say about their children.

And so, I say to everyone mobilise your mammy, ask her to talk to her friends and work colleagues about this. She can change their minds in a way that we can’t.

To my own mother, I say thank you for everything. I am so lucky to have you.

19.3.15

Memorandum on Marriage

FAO Heterosexuals of Ireland.

RE: Marriage Equality.

It is argued that emotion has no place in debate but it is impossible for me to take emotion out of this equation. This topic is too personal to me. I'm sitting here trying to write something that accurately and succinctly conveys how important this to me and I cannot find the words.

Those of you reading this who know me personally, will probably find that hard to believe.

My story is no different to countless others that you will hear in the coming months. My reasons for asking you to support the campaign are no doubt the same ones as everybody else. But they are still important and I will still share them with you:

My love is the same. It is worthy of the same protections as that between a man and a woman. Our relationships are equal.

Marriage equality will send a message that will transcend society. It will send a message to our at-risk gay young people not that it will get better but that it already is better, that it is okay to love who you love because that love holds a place in society.

We homosexuals are real people. We are not stereotypical half-people off the television. We are your teachers, your nurses, your doctors, your politicians, your hairdressers, your bin men. We have lives which are probably not that dissimilar from yours, with the same insecurities and the same concerns. We have crap days at work, we should probably eat better, we’re trying to go to mass more and there’s often too much month at the end of the money. My point is: we are human. We are just like you.

So when confronted with that ballot paper on May 22nd I ask you to consider the above. It means an awful lot to us and won’t affect you very much at all. That state sponsored pencil you’re holding in that strange wooden contraption in your local national school wields an awful lot of power.

Use it wisely.

Vote yes.

24.2.15

Being an Agent of Change

I love the phrase ‘Agent of Change’. I can’t decide if it is because of the James Bond images it conjures up or because it’s something I actually give a shit about. Probably both. Change is, as we are all told, inevitable and I think a very positive thing. Like all things worth having it is not easily realised and frequently resisted.

Change requires Radicals (with a capital R) - people who are not afraid to rock the boat but possess the wherewithal to not fall out of it. These people are ardent, confident and forthright. They are leaders in the truest sense.

Alternatively, they are seen as ‘pushy’ or one of those ‘causes people’. We are quick to judge them and undermine the good they are trying to do. Their efforts are met with eye rolls and oh-here-she-goes-again smirks and that is a crying shame.

 They, of course, couldn't care less. They’re not doing it for the approval or the status, they just care enough to do something.

 I want to be one of those people. I am trying to be one of those people. I give a shit.

I've decided that complaining is no longer an option. No more: ‘Oh isn't it terrible that I can’t get married? Oh poor me.’ In it’s stead: WHAT AM I GOING TO DO ABOUT THAT? Less complaining, more action. And these actions do not need to be grand UN speeches a la Emma Watson, they just need to be something, anything at all that can further the cause of the things I care about.

So, in the coming months I'm going to try write some stuff about various things I care about. Some of it will be serious, some light hearted, marriage equality will most probably feature heavily.

So give up your eye-rolls for Lent and leave your oh-here-he-goes-again smirks at home and join me in The Land of Giving a Shit About Things. Population: YOU.

05.02.2015

Letter to The Editor - Irish Times

A letter I wrote to The Irish Times:

Sir, – It was a brave move of Leo Varadkar to speak publicly about his sexual orientation. Victory in the forthcoming referendum can only be secured if each and every member of the gay community becomes a self-elected public representative for the cause of marriage equality. It is time to come out and speak up! Talk to your parents, your siblings, your grandparents, your nieces and nephews, your cousins, your friends and your work colleagues. Tell them why they should vote yes; respond to their concerns with reason, evidence and respect. These are the people who can realise Mr Varadkar’s hope “to be an equal citizen in his own country”. –

Yours, etc,
Dr FIONÁN DONOHOE,
Glasnevin,
Dublin 9.

20.01.15