Marriage Equality. Why is yours better than mine?

As if this wasn't/isn't reason enough!

I wrote this piece two and a half years ago. I remember friends telling me at the time "Don't worry, this is all going to change within the next year. Yep, give it a year Matt and this will all be apart of history."

Nothing has changed and its now two and a half years...


I have never been one to sit on the fence, don’t ask me why this is, I have just always had an opinion. This is not to say that my opinion is always right, I mean after all, an opinion is just that.

It was my Oma who always told me to “never sit on the fence. No good has ever come from someone sitting on the fence, because at some point the fence will crumble." It was words like this that gave me a strong sense of ones opinion(s) and their importance in life. Very wise and very true words that I carry with me today.

In recent times many “traditional” opinions have been challenged and subsequently changed, whether by law, religiously, ways of thinking or plainly in peoples hearts. Think of the women’s suffrage movement, the civil rights movement and even the way people treat their beloved pets. All things that have gone through drastic change and more importantly, education and a mind set over haul. It brings me to a massive issue that is sweeping the world at the moment, marriage equality.

Now I am not going to harp on about the inequalities that these archaic and unfounded laws pose for gay people and their right to live their life the way they see fit, but I will say that I am hugely disappointed at groups like the Christian lobby and their unrelenting smear campaign against the gay community. I mean what ever happened to “Love thy neighbor” ? I thought that a truly religious person is not meant to judge? Maybe I am wrong. Then again, who am I to judge?

You see, gay people pose NO threat to society in any way what so ever. We (yes, I am one of those very people) do not start wars, we do not form gangs and terrorise people, and I am sure the crime rate amongst gay people would not be surprisingly low. What we do is, pay our taxes (like you and the rest of the country), we love like you do, we hurt like you do, we love our country like you do, we love our friends and family like you do and yes, some of us even have faith like you do. It is time that people stopped fearing us and treated us with the same rights that the rest of the country has, the same rights that we go to vote at the polls with like you and the same rights that protect the country we live in, just like you. I guess you could say, we really are just like YOU.

Please look past the rubbish that is being thrown around at the moment and find it in your heart to see that we too, have a right to love the one we love and should we so desire, marry that special person. I truly believe that my beautiful country, the country that has welcomed people from ALL over the world, will recognise Marriage Equality. Isn’t that what Australia is all about, equality for ALL of its citizens?

#Marriageequality for all!

The exception to whose rule?

I thought I had it all, I thought that I was the exception to the "rule". You know the rule, the one that forbids gay men from staying together for longer than a year and if you do, your relationship then needs to turn into an "open" one. Who made that rule, I am not entirely sure and I guess that I did break the rule in many ways, but maintaining it for eternity seemed a very real and likely possibility. That was until recently.

I grew up with very religious grandparents who had very strong ideas on what a relationship should entail. A man and a woman court (I LOVE that word, so ye olde), fall in love, get married, have children and stay together until the day they should both leave this world. A beautiful ideal and for their generation, a very real and attainable ideal. For my generation, my parents and everyone born after my generation, this kind of notion doesn't seem to exist too much anymore, or so I've heard.

Don't get me wrong, my Grandparents were quite liberal in all their religious views (Jewish and Catholic, Catholic dominated though) and my Oma even went so far as to speak of Gay marriage way back before it was fashionable to support it. However, when I came out to my family, the one thing they wanted for me the most was to have a long lasting relationship with ONE person. Easy peasy. Man, was I in for a shock when it came to relationships and what my expectations of a relationship were to be met with by those that were meant to mean the most to me, my partner(s).

I dated a slew of guys when I moved to Sydney that just wanted one thing, sex. I was the naive and innocent guy from the country town known as Adelaide, (over a million population mind you, one hell of a country town) the guy that evidently had no idea about the hustle and bustle of Sydney and all its harshness and reality on how life was to be lived. The guy as one person so kindly put it, had "outdated, archaic and ridiculous views on gay relationships". I was supposed to be grateful that someone just wanted to fuck me and that I shouldn't expect anything more. I tried it and sure, it was fun as sex usually is, but it wasn't what I wanted and more often than not, left me with a massive void. 

Finally, I met someone who, although I did not fall for instantly, showed me so much love and kindness that it blew my mind. Almost as if it jolted me back to earth and awakened something that I had been suppressing for years, my long lost values. He was so caring and obviously yearning for the same thing I was, love. It wasn't long before we shacked up together, got a cat and plainly put, "set up shop" as a duo. Years passed and so did the many highs and lows, the good times and not so good times and then the one thing that I never thought would happen, happened. Death.

I was young when he passed, 29 years old to be precise. I was discussing his death with a new friend the other day, not as morbid as you may think, more remembering the way people treated his illness. Being gay and ill meant that he had HIV according to all his friends, some of mine and the usual pitying passerby. Actually, he had Leukaemia, but no one cared about what he really had, it was just assumed that we must have had an open relationship being gay and someone "slipped up". Couldn't have been further from the truth, we were in many ways the exception to that rule.

I never thought that I would ever meet another person as kind and generous as him, but as fate would have it, I did. A mutual friend introduced me to this new found handsome intellect and from the moment I met him, I was smitten. I was nervous though, I never prided myself on being "brainy" and knowing he was, made me so anxious on how he would receive me when he realised I was a crazy, emotional loon that loved hard. All my ridiculous insecurities were to put to rest and some 9.5 years later, I look back on the longest relationship I have had and can honestly say that I have had the best time of my life. I have been loved and have loved with all my heart.

There were lows, boy were there lows, none lower than what was to erupt a few weeks ago, but the highs were the greatest of highs and are something that I feel very fortunate to have shared and experienced. Relationships are complex things and more often than not, things that people would rather quit than work on, no matter what form they come in, sexual, friends, marriage, family, they all require great amounts of listening, loving and learning. I guess when I look back and read what I have written, it just reinforces to me that I am the exception to the rule, my rule, whatever that may be. I will continue to write my rules, learn from others rules and adapt them where necessary.

The future is bright. Very bright.

Dear Oma...

December 3rd 2007, Sydney.

Dear Oma,

It has been two years now since you passed and not a day goes by that I don't think of you or wonder where you are. You always told me that if I was ever having trouble trying to articulate how I feel, that I should put it down on paper or in a letter. So, that is what I am doing.

It feels just like yesterday that I was walking with you throughout Europe, laughing with you at the funny people and sights that we saw. Or the time that I spent with you and Mum on Mother's Day at Brighton beach in Adelaide. But it's not, it's two years and much more that I did those things with you and not a single day passes that I don't miss you or even worse, that I find myself crying at the loss of you.

The Tiergarten, Berlin in the early 1940's.

You always told me "that crying in public does no one any good, and it only shows others your weaknesses", I have been good with controlling that, but there are times that I know you can see me crying over you, I hope that you understand why. Sometimes I feel so lost that I scramble to the phone to dial your number, only to realise that it does not exist anymore and in a way, nor do you. Sure, your memories are in my head and my heart, your pictures and videos are all around me, but you, the physical you, is no longer here for me to speak to hold onto or get a hug from when I really need it. That hug is something I am truly needing right about now.

I know that you are happy now, happy to be with Opa and reunited with all those that have passed, but I can not imagine that for the rest of my life I will not see you again, I just can't. I wonder what it was like when you saw your beloved Oma again for the first time. Or if you even did see her again, who knows? You have left a legacy of amazing accomplishments in your wake and I only hope that I will achieve as much as you did in your long and fulfilling lifetime. Somehow I doubt this, but I will do my best to make you proud.

Dresden, May 1939.

You have provided me with all the tools that I need in this life, honesty, integrity, responsibility and an undying commitment to those that we love and have loved. Every time that I am feeling sorry for myself I think of you and what you went through, especially with the bombing of your beautiful city, Dresden and the horrific happenings of the Holocaust, for which you lost many friends and family members. These things whilst extreme, always bring me back to reality and put my own "little" troubles into perspective. You also told me that "one should always put effort into their appearance as people will respond to you better and listen to you more, no matter how ridiculous this statement is, you will understand as you get older". My vanity is only rivalled by you Oma, and yes, we can both have a chuckle over this one.

For every moment that I spent with you when you were with me on earth, I am grateful x's eternity. Do I miss you more than I could ever describe or convey? There just is no word, words or feelings that I could use to let you know how much I miss you. Where ever you are and whom ever you are with, I hope that you are smiling and remembering all the good times we shared in the 33 years we had together, cause I sure am. There was no greater gift than the one you allowed me to share with you as I held you in my arms, stroking your head as you took your final breaths and made your way out of this realm and onto somewhere else. It was one of the saddest days of my life, but strangely also one of my proudest, I just wanted to protect you and love you until the very end.

 I miss you everyday.

Mother's Day, 10th May 2009.