The talk, part 2

And so the drama continues. This is the remaining part of the converstion I had with Sister on Wednesday night. As I said in the other post, I've basically constructed a dialogue based on memory fragments, so this isn't quite how it happened but it will give you the idea...

“Look, God created man and woman for each other… it’s a question of complementarity.” She said.

“Sister, honey, I don’t disagree.” He thought that perhaps he shouldn’t call her honey, since she would consider it a gay thing to do, but then he thought fuck it. “God created man and woman for each other, I totally agree, but as I was saying earlier Sister, don’t confuse normality for ‘the norm’.” He paused, then added, “You see marriage as a union designed for one man and one woman, they are the key players right?” She nodded. “I see it as love and commitment make a marriage, not a man and a woman.”

“Well yes, of course they do, but marriage is also about procreation,” she countered. He was happy she had gone down this path, in a way, because he had a smart answer. But he knew this battle would not be won using smart answers to nit-pick his way to the finish line.

“If procreation is a key element of marriage, then old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry if they’re over child-bearing age. Even younger couples who are known to be sterile shouldn’t be able to marry.”

She didn’t really have an answer to this, but he knew that in her mind he had only ‘won’ this round on a technicality.

“What shits me about the marriage debate,” he continued, “is the way everyone says it will destroy the family. I don’t understand why people don’t see that the family comes in different forms and that the nuclear family is but one of them.”

“I don’t deny that, but marriage is a special institution between a man and a woman. Gay couples are like heterosexual de facto couples.”

“But they’re not. In some ways they are, but the Human Rights Equal Opportunities Commission did a report that found fifty-eight federal laws that discriminate against same sex couples. Rudd promised to remove the discriminations as an election promise but the problem is he also appears to have promised the Christian lobby that gay marriage would not go through, yet the Marriage Act 2004 is one of the fifty-eight. Anyway the attorney general found another forty or so more so the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby and all kinds of organisations are fighting to have them all removed.”

She mentioned at this point that sometimes discrimination is acceptable, especially when it comes to matters of conscience. She brought up the case of a Catholic adoption agency in the UK that was forced to close because denying service to gay couples was now illegal under new anti-discrimination laws.

He lay dumfounded, croaking “Do you really think it’s better to close up shop and have all these children not receiving placement than to give a child to a gay couple.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Right.”

“Lets move on shall we? There’s no point discussing politics tonight, it’s not what you came here to talk about.”

She asked him if he had ever sought counselling with the parish priest. He said no, but he was a part of a group for gay Catholics. She asked about their doctrinal beliefs, whether or not they were at odds with the Church’s teachings. He said they were and explained he had found out about them because he’d seen them marching in the Mardi Gras parade.

Her eyes widened. “You went to the Mardi Gras?”

“Yes and no… I went to a friend’s place on Oxford St and watched the parade from his balcony. So I was there, I watched the parade, but I wasn’t down on the street with all the punters. I’d never have survived; I’ve never seen so many drunken people in one place.”

“What did you think of the whole thing?”

“It was amazing… so many people, so much positive energy. And yes, lots of drugs, lots of alcohol.”

“What kind of people were there?” she asked.

“You mean who was marching?”

“Yes.”

“Well there were ten thousand people marching… Each group or float has however many marchers, sizes change, but there were community organisations, political organisations, religious ones, PFLAG and all that… just about everything.”

“There were no, like, paedophile groups marching were there?” she asked, wincing a little. He couldn’t be sure if she winced because she was thinking about paedophiles or because he looked like he was about to hit her.

“What?” he stammered, incredulous. “No, Sister, there were no paedophiles, no necrophiles, nothing like that. How dare you lump me in the same box.”

“Well you know there are groups in Scandinavia that do that sort of thing. Sorry but I’ve never been before so how am I to know.”

“Use some fucken common sense.”

The conversation moved to the way in which he had told her he is gay. She resented the fact he had done it on the phone and basically dumped it on her while she was away at the leadership camp. She told him she was angry at him for a while for doing it that way, even though she understood why he did it. He explained that in hindsight, yes, could have been handled better but he had planned on doing it in person while she was home for the weekend but by the time he had psyched myself up for it the opportunity never presented itself.

“Did it really take that much psyching up?” she asked, sounding a little offended.

“Can you blame me?” he asked, gesturing around him. “Look I was scared of telling everyone, even the ones I knew would have no issues. But when I came out to Mum & Dad I always knew they’d never kick me out or anything horrible like that, and even though I was shitting myself about telling you I knew that you’d never stop loving me. Ever.”

“Oh good. I'm glad you know that.”

She asked how their parents had taken the news.

“Good. Dad didn’t give a shit, Mum took a little longer but it’s pretty good now I guess,” he answered.

“I don’t know if Mum is as ok with it as you think she is.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I dunno, I think she feels guilty… she’s made comments about whether she caused it or not.”

“But I don’t care if she caused it. What’s done is done. I mean I believe we’re born gay anyway, but you know what I mean.” He recounted the story of his discussion with their mother in which he told her that if she did feel guilty for not picking up on it, he was over the teen turmoil so there was no need to feel guilt anymore as it was no longer an issue.

“Well that’s important that you said that to her.”

Soon after this the summit ended: “It’s late, Sister, it’s like 4am and you have to be up in three and a half hours. We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this shit. You can send me the articles you mentioned if you want, and I have one to send you, and I’ll even read them with an open mind. But like I said it took me twenty one years to work it out and I don’t want to take steps backwards. Besides, I am about to piss myself.”