Gay Things
By Ross Sharp
You will have rugs, fabulous, fabulous rugs.
Here are some words from a letter in the Sydney Morning Herald of June 25th, 2016 …
“ … for those who have chosen to live under God’s rule it would be wrong to marry someone of the same sex. … unlawful in God’s sight … negative consequences …sin …God’s standards … our world is worse off when we ignore His will … God’s laws … “
Gay marriage will not find, or lose you a job.
Gay marriage will not increase the price of groceries, clothing, electricity, gas, water, rent or housing. It will not increase or lower interest rates, or your taxes. It will not raise or lower the price of stocks.
Gay marriage will not blow you up, shoot you or rape you, or your children, if you do not want to be gay. Gay marriage will not send you to war, then praise you and promptly forget about you when (or if) you return. It will not compulsorily acquire your home for a highway, chop down your trees, poison your water, or excavate your backyard for a mine.
Gay marriage will not cut your aged or disability pension, defund women’s refuges, slash arts funding, privatise Medicare, the ABC and SBS, or dismiss the elderly as an ageing burden or youth as shiftless layabouts. It will not cause you to be regarded a worthless, bludging parasite on the face of humanity if, for whatever reason, you are unemployed or physically or mentally ill.
Gay marriage will not shriek at you as if you are stupid and cannot tell fact from fiction. Gay marriage will not destroy the public health system, public education, public transport or public infrastructure in order to make a quick quid, and then expect you to be grateful.
We have governments for these.
Gay marriage may make some a little grumpy or tetchy in the head for a bit because they subscribe to a belief system or ideology which they feel everybody else should subscribe to whether they want to or not, but they will live and their dog/and or cat will continue to like them and ask them for food.
Gay marriage will cause a sharp and sudden spike in demand for marriage celebrants, function and reception halls, the hiring of, hotel rooms, caravan parks, perhaps tents, hiking gear, flannel shirts (?), caterers, caterers who require food so that they may cater, from butchers, grocers, bakers, bought from suppliers who buy the food from producers, icing sugar and dried fruits and little plastic bits and pieces, figurines and flowers perhaps, flowers, yes, flowers from florists who source them from producers, there will be waiters, servers, general staff and managers to manage them in the function and reception halls that have been hired and paid for, possibly recommended to others, possibly not.
There will be clothes to be bought, furniture, bits and pieces of this and that, premises to rent, premises to buy, things to change, labourers and tradesmen hired to change them, labourers and tradesman who will purchase their tools and their materials in order to labour and to trade from those who supply them from those who produce them.
There will be rugs, fabulous, fabulous rugs, and there will be “You are NOT putting that there” and there will be “You haven’t said anything, is it good or bad?” and there will be, “No, I like it, it’s soup, it’s nice”, and there will be “I don’t care if you don’t like it, you can tell me”, and there will be “I’m telling you” and “What, you don’t like it?”, “No! Yes! The fu – You know what I mean, it’s fine, for God’s sake”, and then there will be stony silences and stolen, sulky glances and “Oh, I don’t know” and “I’m sorry”, “That’s okay”, “Are you sure?”, “Yes, I’m fine. What do you want for dinner?”, “We’ll go out. I feel like going out, why don’t we see a movie as well, I like … ” and “Yes, I’ve heard of that, it’s supposed to be good”, and there’ll be rugs, fabulous, fabulous rugs, and there’ll be , “That would look nice in the hallway. And the price, for what it is. I think we should get it”, “Yeah, fine, I want to go look at some DVD’s after this, did you feed the dog?”, “Yes”.
There will be.
“You know where I’d like to go for our 10th anniversary?”
“Am I mind reader? Let me guess. No, I give up. Tell me or I’ll shoot the dog.”
“Slovenia”.
” … “
“No, wait … “
” … “
Flights to be booked, people to book them, hotel rooms, the catering, this and that, from thee and thou, that and this, bits and pieces, “This would look nice in the … “, “The f*cking hallway, yes, the hallway, Jesus”, “You’re impossible”, “Yeah, fine, I want to look at some DVD’s after this, did you text home about the dog?”, “Yes”.
Gay marriage.
It will either make us stronger, or kill us all.
But there will be rugs, fabulous, fabulous rugs.
When he’s not blogging on his own site: Smelly Tongues, Ross Sharp is currently training house cats to live on a sole diet of Resch’s and meat pies. Further details as they come to hand.
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Return to home pageBrilliantly written!
I don’t want Gay Marriage!
I get out of bed in the morning and go to work – like most people do.
I pay tax (unlike churches) and pay for my gas and electricity – like most people do.
I buy food, clothing and footwear – like most people do.
I want a friend and companion – like most people do.
I smile and laugh – like most people do.
I grieve the loss of a loved one – like most people do.
When I fall, I bruise or bleed – like most people do.
I enjoy a restaurant with a scenic view and pleasant company – like most people do.
I like to sit in quiet evening companionship with somebody special – like most people do.
I like a coffee at an outside table with gentle, meaningless conversation – like most people do.
I drive on the correct side of the road and within the speed limit – like most people do.
I argue about the furniture in the house – like most people do.
I get angry for silly reasons – like most people do.
I don’t want Gay Marriage – I just want EQUAL marriage…
Like most people have.
Please consider reading, signing and sharing the following petition…
https://www.change.org/p/the-hon-the-prime-minister-of-australia-legislate-for-marriage-equality-now
Congratulations on a truly wonderful piece of writing. I absolutely love your take on this.
I was phoned the other day to survey for my most important issue in the election. It made me angry that I had to choose between Medicare, Marriage Equality, Education and Jobs. They are all important. The right to healthcare shouldn’t trump the equal right to be married and have the I love you, I love you not, I love you arguments as everyone who can get married have. What ever the outcome of the election, I will be crying. Either for joy or despair – over health and marriage equality. Marriage equality is more than just a right to marry – It will change how Australians currently ‘group’ people. It will be on of the biggest factors reducing stigma against LGBTI people in Australia and with that will follow with prevention of suicide and it will be a pathway for more equality for anyone who does not self identify as the traditional binary male or female.
Congrats again, may this get the wide readership it deserves.
Reschs and a pie, you say, heavy duty cat. Our hound has a liking for champagne and Camembert, she is a French mountain dog though. My partner says we should be more egalitarian and introduce her to Tooheys Old and Chiko rolls, we are in orstraya now, after all. Equality for all, we say, even though poor Scotty has been ostracised for his Christian ways, his right to be a black hearted bastard and poor Corgi Bernadi and all of those shitty bigoted bastards, their need to keep us pure and out of harms way, my heart bleeds for them. After all the sanctity of marriage is such a sacred construct, they say, we are right and that is that after we stopped the goats, maxed the tax, lied and lied and lied some more, believe us our plebiscite will do the trick, our democracy at work and if we choose equality we guarantee we will shaft you once more. Ho ho ho, says Mal the sock puppet, l wear leather jackets, I’m cool, trust me.
That rug, why did we buy that bloody rug? Because it was made by the mad monk of The UK, really, what were we thinking?
I have just been reading your blog. You are freaking awesome. Following!
Funny and very very true. I can see a gay (equal) marriage-led economic recovery. Make some people happy, what’s the problem.?
A couple of elections ago I was handing out for the ALP and there were a couple of lovely clean cut young people handing out for the Christian Democrats. In a quiet moment I asked one of them what he thought was the main issue facing the country – he thought very hard, screwed up his face and said: I have to say Gay Marriage. I couldn’t stop myself laughing in his face. Yet here we are. I still think it’s an issue to be solved with a slight amendment to the marriage act; others think it really will be the end of the world.
Please keep us posted on the cat feeding program: I would have thought water would do the moggies, and meat pies would be very satisfactory to them.
Very nice piece — had me grinning increasingly widely while reading.
It always puzzled me how fundamentalist Christians can say that same sex marriage degrades hetero marriage. It actually does the opposite. It reinforces that marriage is supposed to be about love.
The fundamentalists seem to be intent on making it all about hate. They never seem to notice that they’re the ones degrading marriage.
They go through all kinds of contortions trying to exclude gays, lesbians, and trannies from marriage: it’s about conceiving children (what about childless hetero couples? and what about same sex couples with kids? and what about marriage between elderly couples?); it’s about traditional marriage (you mean one man and a harem of women?); it’s about the Bible (like it’s okay to keep slaves or be enslaved, you should never cut your hair or shave your beard, be put to death if you work on the Sabbath, never eat shellfish, never wear mixed thread, and so on).
The ugly truth is that for them it is all about nasty, vicious, stupid prejudice and hate.
They just can’t let it be about love.
I have called the RSPCA.
Reschs indeed. You should be ashamed sir.
Every thinking cat owner knows that if Reschs isn’t good enough for proper humans or indeed liberals, it can’t possibly be good for cats.
Mine like a reasonable red.
More to the point…suppose marriage equality just meant tiny ceremonies in gardens and very little spent at all…so what? It means that two people who love each other but aren’t a man and a woman can say ‘I do’ – and that’s called fair and right and ‘as-it-should-be’. It’s going to make no actual difference to Cory (Bloody) Bernardi and NO-ONE will want to marry their cat (whatever it eats) – the only difference will be to the couples who are waiting for this to finally happen and the people that will support and surround them on whatever kind of wonderful wedding they have,
If only the author of the letter realised that God is a human construct, just a version of ‘meaning of life’, nothing more – I wonder what she would see in the mirror.
A human construct can be de/re/constructed.
Great writing and image, thank you. Excellent point made re: the bible and what it instructs.
I prefer to call it marriage equality to include all the other groups besides gays, and I really hope you are kidding about your obligate carnivore house mates.
What a great read. Should be the anthem for the plebiscite. Instead of discussion we should just post this.
Fantastic!! Two of my children work at a wedding reception centre and they have celebrated three same sex unions(because of the stupidity of the government in not allowing marriage) which I think is the best! At least they get the celebration of their love with family and friends ( with marriage in the near future-hopefully)
A brilliantly written article …… thank you Ross Sharp.
Hits all the nails on heads – with such a light touch, and much good humour.
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Sir Scotch …….. such a fun response. However, I have to object to a ‘reasonable red’ ….
It absolutely must be a Merlot.
The meat pies worry me quite a bit though !!
😉 😉 😉
I’m sure it was just a typo Sir Scotchmistery – surely Ross meant ‘Reschke’ rather than ‘Reschs’ 😉
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