Last week, Italian fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana started the biggest gay celebrity feud when they declared in a newspaper that they didn’t support gay adoption or endorse gay parents having children through assisted reproduction, dubbing children conceived through IVF “synthetic children”. Sir Elton John tore them a new one, and called for #boycottdolcegabbana. Celebrities from Victoria Beckham to Courtney Love rallied with him, while Ricky Martin rightly pointed out how self-hating D&G sounded, as gay men themselves.
Their arguments against having children sadly sound an awful lot like our new Social Services Minister Scott Morrison when he wrote back to one of his constituents explaining he didn’t support same sex marriage, because he believed marriage was an institution for men and women to raise families where the children have a mother and a father.
Thankfully, not all of Scott Morrison’s Liberal Party colleagues agree. As Judith Ireland wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald this week, there are signs of movement within the Coalition party room towards support of gay marriage since the start of the year, with 11 MPs declaring privately they would now support same sex marriage after previously opposing or being undecided. Among those who publicly support same sex marriage are frontbenchers Communications Minister (and Prime Minister-in-waiting) Malcolm Turnbull, Simon Birmingham and Kelly O’Dwyer.
This slow and inexorable shift within the Liberal Party towards what we all know is an inevitability comes at a time when polling consistently shows the public support for same sex marriage at an overwhelming consensus of 72%. (To put that in perspective, that’s more than triple the number of people who support Tony Abbott remaining Prime Minister, who had an approval rating of just 19% as preferred PM in the last poll).
Last week, the Senate threw their weight behind a free vote on marriage equality, with the Greens, ALP and crossbenchers voting in favour of a motion by Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young to allow a conscious vote on the issue. The Coalition government of course voted against the motion, but it passed anyway. Meanwhile, crossbench Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm has introduced draft legislation to legalise same sex marriage and plans to move to debate the “freedom to marry” bill in the Upper House this week during the sitting fortnight (even though he admits he doesn’t have the numbers to get it passed).
As I’ve just turned the big 3-0 last year, I feel the pinch of marriage inequality more acutely than I did when I was younger. It’s not because I personally have plans to get hitched. Rather, it is because I’m surrounded by weddings. Where once upon a time, everyone I knew spent our weekends at the Peel and Revolver, and my Facebook page was full of pictures of people off their chops at music festivals, nowadays my spare weekends are dominated by engagement parties, weddings and baby showers, and my Facebook newsfeed is full of an inescapable torrent of photos of brides and babies. Even at work, the discussion around the water cooler once dominated by gossip and sex now involves discussions about dresses, catering options and invitation etiquette.
Every so often people will ask if I want to get married, or what I would wear (not a dress obviously), or whether we’d both have hens’ nights and who would walk down the aisle first. While I dread the thought of the avalanche of gay wedding invitations that will inevitably follow marriage equality finally passing, and the thought of rainbow coloured vegan wedding cakes and matching tuxedos caketoppers makes me feel slightly queasy, I do want see my gays start getting married like everyone else is.
With so much talk of weddings, as an openly gay person you feel like you’ve been helping plan a party you aren’t invited to. Every time we gays have to sit at wedding ceremony, dressed to the nines, spend as much of dough on a gift and hear the celebrant repeat the definition from the Marriage Act declaring man is between a man and a woman, you see people give you pitying glances and your heart breaks a little. So I for one hope that our Parliament hurries the fuck up and get this shit over with sooner rather than later, so we gays can start paying you all back by throwing our own obnoxious huge weddings too.
Don’t miss the final weekend of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival this week. After their sold-out same-sex speed dating sessions, MQFF is also throwing their annual Celluloid Casserole screenings of new Australian shorts at the LOOP, presented by Shaun Miller Lawyers, LOOP and MQFF. On the night, you’ll get to mingle with the filmmakers, see who wins the awards and all it costs you is a gold coin donation. From 7pm – 10pm on Wednesday March 25. If you missed them, there will be four encore screenings of some of the most popular films next Monday including LA-based lesbian rock musical Girltrash, sombre Australian drama Drown set on Sydney’s beaches and the gay rom com The 10 Year Plan.
CHURCH is throwing the second last Sunday session of the season this Sunday March 29, before the religious experience goes on hiatus and turns monthly for the winter months. Presented by CLOSET, CHURCH is a place of worship for queers and queens on the northside, and welcomes a congregation of saints and sinners from bearded homos to baby dykes and everything in between. From 3pm till late, CHURCH has free entry, free ice creams, a sunny beer garden, $10 Bloody Marys and DJs Catriona Constance v Mellydee, Mimi, JLAW and more.
On Easter Saturday, Thick’N’Juicy will take over the whole of the Royal Melbourne Hotel to host one of its legendary sweaty day parties from 1pm-9pm. Tickets are $35 + booking fee or $45 on the door. With DJs Alex Taylor, Amanda Louise and Colin Gaff from Sydney, Argonaut, Jason Conti, Grant Cook, Kam Shafaati and performances by Dean Arcuri and Polly Filla. There will also be a free after party upstairs for ticketholders who want to kick on into the night. Presales are available on from mannhaus.com.au.
For the ladies, the girls behind So Juicy at Fabrique is transforming into new lesbian monthly called Mother, which is not to be confused with the energy drink and welcomes all ladyl overs (not just MILFs). 10pm till 5am at Fabrique Bar, 272 City Road, Southbank. $10 before 11pm and $15 after, with free pizza at midnight, darts, gay twister and teapot shots. Mother launches on Sat March 28. Further info visit facebook.com/motherparty.
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