Loading ...- Category:
- Soap Box
- Author:
- Doug Pollard
- Posted:
- Wednesday, 1 July 2009
There is a yawning generation gap. On my side we can remember when we could be jailed or subjected to forced psychiatric treatment just for existing. Our parents threw us out of home.
We watched dozens of friends and hundreds of acquaintances die from an unknown illness while most people shrugged and said, -œWhy worry? It only kills faggots and junkies. We were always in a fight, and we still are.
On the other side stand you who were legal from the day you were born, whose parents never withdrew their love and support, who didn’t have to watch your friends die while the world looked on with indifference.
For you, the big fights are over, and it’s just about the details. Chill.
There isn’t much communication across this gap. Fifty-somethings have for the most part given up being snubbed by 20-somethings, and 20-somethings tend to flee from us like nervous virgins, for fear they will be unable to resist our charms and wake up in chains in our dungeons. They should be so lucky!
But thanks to this column, and my radio program, I get to hear firsthand some of the thoughts and opinions of people of younger generations, through online feedback. For example, on my Facebook page I recently expressed my frustration with the Government’s stance on same-sex marriage.
-œWhy are you in such a rush? asked one young man. -œWhy all this fuss over a bit of paper most people don’t want anyway? We’ve made incredible strides in just one generation, from persecuted minority to near equality. The rest will all fall into place quite naturally in 15 or 20 years time.
I have a couple of problems with that. Firstly, it’s already taken too long to get this far. Equality is almost within our grasp. It would be lazy and foolish to settle for second class status now.
Some countries say a woman is worth 50 cows, others say 100 goats, some say half a man. We’re a little better off than that, but why should I tolerate being valued at 90 percent of a heterosexual for the next 20 years?
Secondly, I may not even be alive in 2030, although with a bit of luck, and some major breakthroughs in medical science, I suppose I might be. With plastic surgery, a transgenic pig heart, and a new set of balls grown from my own stem cells, I might even find a third career as a Michael Jackson lookalike.
And as I stand at the altar to finally marry my husband, part of me (one of the original bits) will probably enjoy the irony that at last I am considered 100 percent human.
And finally, marriage is only a happy ending in fairytales. There’ll still be more to do. There are a lot of people -” especially lesbians, it seems -” who want something more than traditional marriage. Or something different altogether.
For myself, I’ll be happy to settle for equality. But not for anything less.
Tags: Doug Pollard
