THE SAME SEX MARRIAGE DEBATE

In Australia at the moment we are in the middle of a postal vote, where as a country we get to decide whether or not same sex couples are allowed to get married. 

Frankly the whole thing is a bullshit debarkle by the liberal government which is costing tax payers $122 MILLION dollars that could be better spent on pretty much anything else. This post is a rant and a vent rather than a carefully worded logical argument because I am tired and annoyed and I believe with my whole heart and my mind that marriage should be strictly reserved for two people who decide that they want to get married and everyone else can butt the hell out.

As a person who is straight and married, I didn’t have to get millions of total strangers to decide whether or not I ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ be allowed to marry the person I was in love with. Despite the fact that I was a non-religious 18year old and 4 months pregnant with my second child I was allowed to legally marry my husband, we signed a form waited 30 days and got hitched. No questions asked. It was nobody elses business!

I hate this vote because it shouldn’t have to happen, it’s 2017; we are supposed to be equal! It should not be up to anyone other than the couple wanting to marry to make decisions that impact their personal lives in this way. Centrelink and the tax department have no problems with same sex couples having the same rights as heterosexual couples when it comes to merging finances, so why can’t same sex couples declare their love for each other and get a nationally recognised marriage certificate like heterosexual couples? The government doesn’t seem to mind when it serves their purpose.

One person I know was arguing that “those people” shouldn’t marry because “the sexual act of anal intercourse is against the word of God.” This gave me the shits for so many reasons but rather than say something I may later regret to a person I will unfortunately have to interact civilly with in the future I am voicing my opinions here.

What I could have said was if that’s honestly your best argument then just shut up mate because men and women have anal sex all the time and you don’t seem to mind them getting hitched.

If you don’t like the idea of same sex relationships, don’t have a relationship with someone of the same sex. It’s pretty straightforward. How would you feel if someone decided that they didn’t like the fact that you give/receive blow jobs and decided there for you can’t get married? Blow job’s aren’t “natural”. You’d be pretty upset, your sex life and choice to marry is none of their God damn business! 

NOBODY else's sex life is ANYBODY else's business regardless of gender. What you choose to do in the bedroom is private and this is your chance to vote YES for marriage equality which is unrelated to people’s private bedroom time.

So far, the dumbest argument I have heard from the ‘no’ camp was “But if we allow Same Sex Marriage people won’t be able to procreate and the human race will die out” Yes, somebody actually said that. *Face palm* Newsflash: not allowing people of the same sex who are in love to marry is not going to stop them from being gay, allowing same sex marriage is not going to suddenly turn the whole world gay. Besides same sex couples can (and do) have children, so that argument is just...*sigh*... oh why am I even bothering. 

The saddest thing here is that lifeline is currently being inundated with calls from the LBGQ community who are under enormous stress from having their private lives shoved so rudely into the spotlight and publicly judged for being who they naturally are, this includes children. 

That should not be happening.

Look everyone has the right to an opinion, freedom of speech and all that (providing it's not hateful), it’s what makes this country great, but if you are leaning towards ‘No’ then think about what you are actually voting against and if the answer is anything other than honestly believing two people of the same gender that already have the same rights to a private sex life, rights to have kids and financial responsibilities as two people of different genders shouldn’t be allowed to have an official marriage then you should actually be voting yes. 

I can honestly say that when I put my vote into the letter box it was the first time since I turned 18 that I actually WANTED to vote, the first time I felt like I was genuinely voting for something that matters. 

While this vote should never have had to happen in the first place, now that it is happening, for goodness sake Australia, do the right thing. 

Vote for people, vote for freedom and vote for equality. Vote YES.

Death

I was listening to the lovely Jamoalki's latest podcast about his reactions and lack of reactions to the deaths of friends and family members and it got me thinking about my own tendency to not cry when someone passes away. Quick trigger warning here, death and suicide is discussed in detail.

Both my grandfathers died before I was born, one Grandmother after a long battle with Alzheimer's lived in England and died when I was about 8, I had only met her once and while I was sad for my mother's loss I didn't have a connection with her and so I didn't cry. My other grandmother died about 5 years ago at age 93, I am ashamed to say I remember the date as it was my son's birthday but I don't remember the year. We had been close once, but I felt nothing when she died. 

There have been four people from my Garden Club pass away from cancer over the last 5 years, I have a plant in my garden in memory of each of them, but I didn't cry. My psychiatrist says that my lack of tears doesn't mean I am heartless, but I have spent such a lot of my life suicidal and believing that death is the better offer that I have desensitized to it in a way.

I have only been to three funerals, all friends that were under 45 - and I did cry at each of those, the atmosphere gets to me more than the actual loss does, the sadness of the mourners can be all encompassing. One was my school friend Ben at just age 22 who died in a car accident, 

Another was a local man I didn't know very well really but I knew his wife, the whole town came to the funeral, the tiny church overflowed onto the grounds, it was sad to feel so much grief around me, particularly as I was deeply suicidal at the time and wished so much that I could have taken his place.

The last funeral I attended was that of a colleague when I was also deeply depressed and suicidal - I had written about it's effect on me at the time and how close I came to suicide afterwards and have included that post below:  

                                                               The Purple Coffin:

“She was one of those people with more personality than she knew what to do with. She stood up for the world and was passionate about everything, a mother, a wife, a sister, a friend she was many things to many people but to me she was a colleague. Her fiery sense of standing up for people’s perceived rights could be downright scary at times depending on which side of the argument you were standing. I won’t forget the blaze in her eyes as she would snarl “just try it! Her passion it seems, was born from her own inner demons, described as somewhat formidable at times.

 While we had talked at work often, I think I learned more about her that day in the room full of mourners, those that had loved her than I would ever have been privy to otherwise. she was also a nurturer, a care giver, gardener and breeder of Pomeranians – I own one & didn’t even know that about her, we could have talked about it, bonded more perhaps. Would it have changed anything?

 

Her bright purple coffin adorned with the most brilliant display of flowers carefully collected from her own garden. I was somewhat saddened that we had so much more in common than I had realised and I wondered for the conversations that might have been had time permitted.

While the taste of salt trickled onto my lips, the feeling I had in my heart was not so much one of sadness for the loss of a friend, but of my own guilt. My outlook on what so many were calling a wasted life tainted by my own experiences and feelings, it is hard to admit that I was glad for her in that moment, glad that she had found the peace she needed at that time, the peace I secretly crave so deeply. I was envious. 

Two of her four children, the same age as two of mine – their faces. The way her eldest daughter spoke with guilt wishing she had said and done more, or less – never imagining that once her mother had been admitted to the mental health unit that she would never see her again, not have the chance to take back harsh words and tell her she loved her. 

That was hard to hear. 

 

I took a deep breath and with a final look at that bright purple coffin I whispered goodbye. As I drove home my mood was rather surreal. The looks on those little faces, the same ones I would likely be causing on my own kids someday. It hurt so bad. For them so many more questions than answers.

The hardest part about this for me is it hasn’t changed how I feel in the way it seems it probably should. I was supposed to look at this as a realisation that I need to stay well for my kids, to TRY and want to stay well. But it didn’t work, I understand the intellectual concept and I feel as guilty as hell that I don’t FEEL it but I can’t help my own need for peace. 

A few days later with these added guilty thoughts and pit of depression I had already sunk into before the funeral, I had an internal anxiety attack during work and literally ran out the door chased by a team leader who knew about my issues asking what was wrong, I told her “nothing” as tears stung my eyes, “I just have to go”. 

I drove about 40km out of the city to a spot I had always regarded as a possible final resting place. A beautiful waterfall that tumbles down a sheer cliff face. I cut through the bush track to avoid the safety rail look-out area and instead climbed down the rocky stream to the edge of the cliff. I sat there with a bottle of water and a bottle of pills in my hand and my legs dangling off the edge, waves of numbness and simultaneous peace flowing through my body.

The sun was warm on my skin as I lay back absorbing the rays on my face for a while feeling very close to nature. My iPod on the ‘D’ playlist. ‘D’ for death. I had no paper to write a note. Oh well, best laid plans and all of that, someone would eventually go through my computer and find my heavily pass-coded ramblings. 

 As I thought about how I would position myself so that I would likely roll off the edge once the pills had taken affect a nagging little voice inside my mind kept saying "this isn’t fair on Cara", not my husband, not my kids but Cara, my team leader who’s final words to me had been ‘are you sure there is nothing I can do?” with a look of startled concern in her eyes and a slight wobble in her voice. I had told her ‘no, but thanks..’ before I walked away without looking back.

Our team had already lost one of our own to suicide in the last week, and as I lay back in the sun tears stinging in the corners of my eyes I felt like I couldn’t do that to Cara- she would blame herself for not acting on her instinct, she’s only young and she doesn’t need that, it’s too selfish. 

At that moment I heard voices from up the track. Shit! People were coming down to the look out. I shoved the pills back in my pocket and bolted up the flat rocks and back into the crevices of the boulders on the side. Getting caught on a cliff face with pills in your hand probably lands you locked up somewhere I don’t want to go. 

I jumped back over the railing, walked up the track nodding a polite hello to the group of people coming down the other way. They didn't know how different their day would have turned out if they had arrived at the secluded lookout just half an hour later. I got back to my car and drove the long way back through the city and home to my family like nothing had ever happened."

What I didn't know at the time of writing this post was that my friends idea of committing suicide while in a mental health facility would ultimately trigger me to do the same thing. 

I think about her often now, I wonder if she had of lived through that experience the same way I did if she would no longer be suicidal, if it would have ultimately changed things or if it would have just put off the inevitable. 

How do you feel about or cope with different kinds of death?