Rally for Equal Marriage Rights - Perth, Western Australia 19/03/2011

When one of the Mo’ mums at my kids school asked me what we were going to do on the weekend I told her that we were going to the Rally for Equal Marriage Rights. There was some stunned silence before she managed to exclaim something about me fighting for the ‘other side’.  We talked about it for a little while. She is very happy to openly discuss things, which is great because although we disagree on a lot of issues I don’t feel like I have to hold anything back when I talk to her.

 I am not much of an expert on the plight of the LGBT community so I thought I’d just write down some of the things she said and then leave it up to more my savvy commenters to reply. I’ll add my thoughts too.

The first thing she asked was if I knew that if the LGBT community was given equal marriage rights then ‘it’ would have to be taught in schools, to kids as young as 5?

My thoughts – I just watched an episode of Glee the other night where being gay was spoken about very openly in and out of class. I know it is just TV and they didn’t mention marriage but I get the feeling that the world is pretty well prepared for their kids to talk about LGBT rights etc at school.  Also, if people are born with their own sexual orientation then wouldn’t it be imperative that they hear about the legitimacy of their feelings at school?!

Then she said that if same-sex couples were allowed to marry then paedophilia and bestiality would soon follow as accepted ‘lifestyle choices’.

Ugh! – So (some) opponents of same-sex marriage actually look at the love and devotion clearly displayed by consenting adults in a same-sex relationship as being ‘in the same boat as’ or 'close enough to' criminal behaviour.

My friend said, "soon religious people will lose all of their rights". I asked her what she was talking about. She said that she "wouldn’t be allowed to say that being gay is wrong."

Hmmm. I’m pretty sure freedom of speech won’t be taken away, but you might want to be careful where you say it, more for your own safety than anything. Believe what you want to believe, just stay out of other peoples' bedrooms and marriages!

One other thing she said was that it wasn’t right for 3% of the population to dictate to 97% of the population.

Well what ever happened to fighting for the little guy, the minorities? I also think that the 3% statistic is fairly useless since I wonder how many LGBT are openly gay? My spider senses tell me that the real figure is much higher… 

Grief

I think I am just coming out of my second cycle of grief. At least, if I look at things that way then my life seems to make a bit more sense. Right now I would say I’m rather squarely in the depression phase just hanging out for acceptance to kick in.

The first cycle was grieving over the loss of my religion. Having grown up in the church and having been raised and educated by a very specific set of values I think it was only natural to grieve the loss of reassurance that there was ‘a divine plan’. Although I have been very happy to say goodbye to some parts of the religion, other parts were quite nice (e.g. forever families) and were painful to let go of.

I definitely went through a denial phase, quite a long one too. This phase went on for about a year. I read and read and read. I was trying to find information that would explain the inconsistencies and make everything all right again. I gripped on to hope. In the end I strangled it. There was no hope.

Shock. In the shock phase I needed to talk all of the time. Rockstar put in a monster effort but it was a massive strain. Then I found you, dear cyber-space, you seem to be able to listen forever and you never interrupt me. Sigh.

As you may have noticed, a teensy bit of anger, oh who am I kidding, a hell of a lot of anger raged forth. This occurred soon after I began blogging. Things got ugly rather fast. There was a massive fall-out from my public expressions of anger. Tension. Fury. Pain.

Sadness.

My sad and depressed phase was relatively short. Maybe I had experienced enough depression in my life already and this time I was able to move on. I exercised, meditated, spoke/cried with friends and felt sorry for myself.

Then I accepted that the losses that I had experienced were necessary for my growth and happiness. I accepted that I had lost friends. I made new friends. I got a wicked massage! And found my happiness again. Oh joy!!

Enter cycle number two.

This one knocked the breath out of me. I lost my perfect, loving Heavenly Father and Mother. My ‘real parents’, who I had longed to return to since I knew of their existence, were figments of my imagination. Ugh!

No returning safely onto the arms of sweet white-haired supreme beings. No happily ever after. Crap!

Denial had been there the whole time. There was no anger this time, only sadness: deep, deep sadness. Add a splash of shock. No posts on the blog. Too depressed to write.

So I smile at this little ray of sunshine. I am able to write again. I am amazed actually. When I started writing this post I was waiting for acceptance to kick in… and I really think it just did.

I accept that I don’t know anything anymore.

I welcome the hope and the love that entered my heart today.