Even for a kid with two mums, you don't fully realise what hate is until you live it
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Version 0 of 1. I love my mum. We’ve had our moments – sometimes I think she’d be happier if I cut my hair and “got a real job” – but we love each other and always will. But my mum and dad didn’t love each other. Dad was a bit older than Mum and left when she got pregnant at age 20. During the pregnancy, Mum realised she was gay. She met a lovely woman, who for the first nine years of my life helped to raise me, care for me and to this day loves me as if I was a son born of her body. And I love her like she was my mum too. Related: Guardian Australia survey of MPs shows same-sex marriage not a done deal There’s no doubt that I’ve had a lot of love in my life. Sadly there’s been quite a lot of hate too. I grew up in central Victoria. When I was a kid we lived in Smythesdale, Skipton, Ballarat, Bacchus Marsh and Ballan. I went to university in Geelong. There are great people in all those places and many of the friends I’ve had and still have, I met there. We moved around for all the reasons working-class people do. Work, family commitments and social stigma. It wasn’t until I was living in my inner-city apartment, surrounded by hipsters and progressives, that I realised sometimes we also moved because my mum is gay. When you’re a kid you don’t fully realise what hate is, what drives it, how it manifests. Unless you have to live through it. I remember when I was in prep I got called a faggot and didn’t even know what it meant. Our house got broken into and nothing was stolen; things were just wrecked. Someone pissed on our carpet. One of the neighbours killed our cat; we moved after that. When I was in primary school we had family friends who had marital problems. Apparently if you beat your wife it’s the lesbians who live on the outskirts of town who are to blame when she leaves you. He came to our house with a knife. We were working class. Mum worked in the laundry of a mental health facility and at a meatworks. Eventually she got a job in the public service. Her relationship changed and a new partner came on the scene. Apparently it had been tolerable to have a lesbian couple, so long as they appeared to be a solid unit that appeared “normal”. But a single-parent lesbian, dating another lesbian from a nearby town? This time it was the dog that died. We moved again. I was supported to finish primary and started high school at an independent school. Having the dyke kid get to go to a fancy school didn’t seem to sit well with everybody in our neighbourhood. Luckily roof tiles don’t get too worried by the occasional stone or bottle. By the time I went to university Mum had been with her current partner for a long time. The stress and pain of merging our families was mostly over. Six kids with almost 20 years between us meant a lot of coping, explaining and drama. We worked through it, including when one decided that our family was no longer family for them. As a kid and then as a young man all these things meant trouble. I was pretty sizeable and got into fights. I made it clear people could say what they wanted about me – but my mums were off limits. One kid got a broken nose, another lost a tooth. Black eyes, bleeding lips and blows to the head. I had stones, bottles, sticks and cans thrown at me. I got attacked with knives, bats and chains. That was growing up with love in a family that some thought was weird, wrong, perverted or strange. In this past week homosexual couples have been granted the same legal rights to marriage as heterosexual couples in America. In handing down the ruling the supreme court said, “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family”. In Australia we haven’t seen fit to grant homosexual couples those same rights. Related: Same-sex marriage isn't equality for all LGBT people. Our movement can't end | Chelsea Manning My mum and her partner have been together 21 years. They have two dogs (child-like labradors), grandkids and great grandkids. Chickens and some corn. Mum plays country women’s golf and her partner looks after the grandkids and great-grandkids most days. They love each other – despite everything and everyone who had told them for so long that it wasn’t OK – and they love me, their son. It is inconceivable to me that they shouldn’t be allowed to marry each other. As human beings they’ve earned the right to make that choice. Marriage equality is just equality. |