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