So the papers and TV and radio news were full of reports at the weekend that gay couples who have had their relationships recognised abroad will be able to have those relationships recognised here whenever the legislation is passed recognising same sex relationships.
Ah yes safe lovely cuddly couples who can financially contribute to the country and are being dissuaded from coming home to make their millions or demonstrate their talents (for what singing? actually maybe we could finally win the Eurovision if the state recognised same sex relationships!). Seriously…watch the GLEN spokes person in the news report on RTE from Saturday night (report titled Civil Partnership Reports Welcomed)
The issues raised about the lack of recognition by the couple affected are all very genuine of course – and if we could see their plight amonst all the others then maybe so many lesbians and gay men would not feel so dissaffected by those who claim to represent our views.
There are far more couples out there with one member at risk of deportation due to non EU resident status (and non recognition) who have not got any form of relationship recognition or marriage certificate. There are even more again who look like being dropped by both the lesbian and gay movement and politicians in the debates in the months to come. Those are the couples with children or with parenting intentions.
It’s time we started acknowledging how this campaign is going to be managed and dressed up in pink fluffy bows…no lavender there at all and not a babies bottle in sight. And as for poverty and disadvantage …oh but a distant memory.
In an earlier post on your blog,www.mamanpoulet.com/?p=66, we alluded to how conservatism impacts on sexual politics.
While the late gay activist and educator, Eric Rofes argued that “there is room for monogamous gay couples and sex pigs in the same big tent of community”. But the current political campaign (as it is) does seem that the other settlement on this island bears resemblance to animal farm or to an Iowan political caucus, where sheep baaack the wiiinner!
We are being offered the “good gays” and ignoring the dodgy queers, the non-conforming homos and dykes, the outsiders (that’s ironic isn’t) and the queer crips, long-term ill and so on, who are usually referred to as the “usual suspects”. Let the hierarchy begin!
I’ve nothing against claims for gay marriage/ civil partnership. I shouldn’t. Not today of all days. It is our 19th anniversary. I would hope that next year, I will be happily married. But I also want more than that…
(In the words of Sophia Petrillo): Picture it, Hooray Henry’s 1989. Two young(er) gay men hook up, dancing to ‘Kissing a Fool’ by George Michael. One lived at home with parents, the other had spent the prior New Year’s eve at a parochial house with a few gay priests (hmmm). For different reasons, we clicked. We moved in together, and that was it! All thanks to a wonderful matchmaker, Reg Deane … Well, we’ve outlasted Hooray Henry’s and Minsky’s. And in the words of Shirley Maclaine: we’re still here!!!!
But the other day on the street, I spotted someone I vaguely knew at that time. Looked old, wrinkled. I thanked my mother’s good genes that I don’t look like that, but it did make me start to think about our generation.
Maman Poulet: I’ll admit to being a ‘couple of years’ older than you, but I do re/member the poverty, the exclusions, the struggle to make space for LGBT people. Yep, the poverty and the fear and how many LGBT people still remain in shadow, or have to work around their sexual orientation (covering in Goffman’s terms).
Now that gay marriage is in sight, I simply don’t want it to be the point of erasure of the complexity of our community. There is a past, as well as a present and future, and we should not simply sleep-walk into Fianna Glas’s nirvana: because that will only seek to silence a vibrant minority, that is only starting to learn how to walk and talk. We need to talk about these challenges, and use these opportunities (law reform) to keep growing.
We don’t fit into any ‘special boxes’ and we are simply NOT the same as heterosexuals… I hope, in spite of my concerns about the ‘flattening’ of the community, that civil partnership will lead us to be more vocal (not less) and see how many there are within the tent, who do not always get a look-in.
Like Mrs Beeton, I think I’m done now…
The whole “talent” angle is a bit bizarre – I think that there also seems to be a pre acceptance of whatever the minister puts on the table because he’s making the right noises
Money’s too tight to mention when/if Civil Partnerships will happen? | Maman Poulet // Oct 27, 2008 at 03:01
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