Firstly, I just wish to point out that I am a straight lady and I'm not the oppressed one. But I am a very opinionated person and I wish to make a statement about my feelings on Gay Marriage. I would suggest grabbing popcorn, it's gonna be a long one.
Almost fifty years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered
possibly the most iconic speech of the 20th Century. You may not
know all of its content but you will certainly have heard the phrase, ‘I Have a
Dream’. The ‘I Have a Dream’ speech was about ending the prejudice and
suffering that had plagued African-Americans since the abolition of slavery.
And it set in motion a great change, a positive change. Whilst, sadly, racism
is still around us from a small-minded minority, the thought of black people not
having equal rights in today’s world is unthinkable. No-one could get away with
it. It is almost horrendous to think that just a short time ago, black people
were treated as second-class citizens. However, whilst it is a shameful chapter
in our history, thankfully, it’s mostly in the past.
Sadly though, I find myself asking the question: why haven’t
we learned from the mistakes of our predecessors? Why must some community of
our society always be made to feel second-class or unequal? And will we ever
get to a stage in our history where everyone can live equally?
I wish I knew the answer to that question but the fact is:
There is no answer. No-one should be made to feel unequal. And yet, we continue
to let it happen.
Gay people have been around since approximately the dawn of
time. First of all, I’m going to put some metaphorical science goggles on and
get slightly biological. Men have, over the course of a million years,
developed a prostate gland, which when stimulated can provide pleasure. However,
the site of this gland is only reachable through ‘ahem’, the back passage. Now,
we don’t need to have a PHD in medicine to know that women do not possess the
right apparatus to reach this area and whilst I can’t be totally positive, I
don’t think men back then were double jointed or flexible enough to reach it
(The Cavemen Olympic Gymnastics Team didn’t have much success, I hear).
Without going into too much explicit detail, ‘cough’
‘cavemen probably had sex’ ‘cough’. Whilst I’m not pointing out that men are
biologically gay, I am saying that men engaged in sexual activities with other
men during the process of evolution and as such, men have developed to reflect
that. However, I won’t ponder too much on this, I’d have to try and persuade
people who don’t believe in evolution and that, my friends, is a whole other
can of worms.
In Ancient Rome, there were, surprise, surprise, Gay people.
When the ruins of Pompeii were uncovered thousands of years after it had been
covered in volcanic ash, mosaics and wall carvings were found depicting
same-sex lovers. Art dated back to Ancient Greece depicts women sharing
intimacy with each other. William Shakespeare was rumoured to have been
bi-sexual, with his sonnet, number 126, said to have been written about his male
lover.
I could go on but the reason I point all of this out is that
when people have the opinion that there are more homosexual people now than
there were in the past (and view it as a negative thing) they are wrong.
Whilst, yes, there are more openly gay people now, it is because it is deemed
more acceptable. Back then, there were probably many people who were gay but
out of fear of being disowned or worse, they pretended to the world that they
were heterosexual. They married the opposite sex to continue the façade of
being ‘normal’.
The point is, I don’t see why Scotland as a nation should
have to hold a consultation of Gay marriage. It shouldn’t be an issue and to be
honest, it’s no-one else’s business if two men or two women want to get
married, it doesn’t affect you. I mean, I am a straight woman but I do not think that I
should have any more right to be able to get married to the man I love than any of my gay or
lesbian friends do.
I’m not religious in the slightest but I will always respect
and support people’s right to have a faith and be religious. However, I do not
think it is right to base a democratic country such as Scotland’s laws on a
religious order. Whilst I have the utmost respect for Christianity, there is no
solid evidence of the existence of a God. I’m not saying there isn’t one but
presently, we cannot assume for definite that there is one. However, what you
cannot dispute is that there are people in this world, men with women, women
with women and men with men, who love each other and wish to start a life
together. Heterosexual people get the opportunity to share their love with the
world without prejudice whereas homosexuals do not and that, my friends, is the
sign of inequality in our society and it needs to end.
To people who believe it is there business to protect the
traditional family unit and prevent homosexuals from marrying, I ask them to
take a look at ‘traditional marriage’. More and more traditional marriages end
in divorce now than ever before. How is that a better family unit than two
loving homosexual partners who might live together forever happily in marriage
but currently do not get the chance? And to the people who say that they shouldn’t
be able to adopt children, I ask them to put themselves in the shoes of
countless children in care and see if they would rather stay in the system or
be allowed a chance at a happy life with two loving parents, regardless of
gender. The world is changing and family units are changing and we can either
stay in the past with narrow-minded views or we can embrace change and let
everyone become equal.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but unless it affects
you, don’t prevent others from doing what they believe in. Personally, I don’t
believe in religion, I think it restricts people (and that might be more a more
strongly-held opinion because I am female) but I don’t go out and campaign for
people to stop believing in their faith. Instead, I respect and support their
right to practice their faith because it doesn’t concern me and people should
be allowed to live their lives in a way that suits them without affecting
anyone else. However, the same courtesy is not being provided to homosexuals
and that is fundamentally wrong.
If you have a problem with gay marriage then I implore you
to step back and look at the situation. Do two men or two women marrying each
other negatively affect your life? And secondly, if you were in their shoes and
marriage between heterosexuals was illegal, how would you feel? How would you
feel not being able to marry the person you love?
If you can answer both of those questions sensibly then I
ask you to either support gay marriage or to not stand in its way.
I hope that in the future, when my children are my age, they
can look back on this chapter in history and ask me ‘Why were gay people
prejudiced in the first place?’ and realise how ridiculous we were in
preventing it for such a long time. Whether my children are heterosexual, homosexual or even convert to a
religious order, I don’t care because all I want is for people to be happy and
to pursue the life that they want to live and most importantly, have an equal
standing in society.
Equal rights, equal love.
For those interested in supporting Gay Marriage, please sign or provide feedback to the Scottish Government's consultation on Gay Marriage through here:
equalmarriage.org.uk
