Learning to walk on the road to equality

Dear Grace.

You challenged the world, and in so doing, made me see it differently, and it cost you all too much.

It’s 2017. Australia is holding a plebiscite – a non-binding national vote – to determine if we should legalise same-sex marriage. No, wait, to see if we should introduce a bill to parliament that proposes legalising same-sex marriage. So even if the country votes “yes” the politicians might still vote “no”, and gay and lesbian couples will remain, in the eyes of the law, second class citizens. In Australia. In 2017.

I’m watching you in the lead up to the vote, watching you act with the dignity inherent in your name, as wave after wave of vitriol is hurled against you. The deliberate and targeted polarisation by icons of strife, who stir up poisoned speech for no other reason than to gain a political point, or worse, to sell a paper or a click on their page. The demographics of hate find an easy market.

“Oh, but we don’t think any less of the person,” they say, “they can still have partners, but it’s just not right for them to get married.” Exsolving themselves of guilt, while, with cheap and thoughtless words, they steal a part of you away, claim you’re somehow less, somehow not really a person. And still you act with dignity.

“How do you bear this?” I ask, “how do you tolerate this onslaught?”

I’ll never forget your answer, because it cut me so close to the bone and, by God, I deserved it.

“This onslaught is what is always there, you just don’t usually see it.”

And that is why I am so very grateful to you. You have shown me the bigotry I couldn’t see, that was hidden from me because I have the privilege of being sheltered from it, and by extension, a part of it. Silence is acceptance of the status quo, and I have been, for so very long, unthinkingly a silent partner in this land of false equality and I am not ok with that.

The campaign continues, approaching its culmination in November, and the ‘no’ campaign becomes even more strident. I’d not thought they could be any more vindictive, but somehow they manage it, thundering from the pulpits of their self-proclaimed morality, that somehow love is only love, if it’s between a man and a woman – and they have to be the “right” kind of man and woman too.

You remain as dignified as ever. I become prickly and argumentative. I lose a friend over the matter, saying words in haste I wish I could recall. You lose friends too…

It is with a feeling of relief that the final voting is complete, that the campaigns and sloganeering and unrelenting barrage finally cease. The silence is deafening, but in that silence is the terror of waiting. What if all this has been for nothing? What if all we have achieved is the emboldening of the hateful?

Then the numbers come in. Sixty-two percent vote “yes”, and just thirty-eight percent vote “no”. Finally; acknowledgement by the people of Australia that they really do believe in equality. And at that point I finally see your dignity slip, and you break down and cry. You have lost so much in fighting for this; lost friends who simply could not stand the pain of this hatred any longer, and it’s not fair that anyone should have to suffer so much, just to be able to express their love.

I am so very grateful to you for showing me what it means to be strong in the face of adversity. I am grateful that I could learn from you what this bigotry truly means so I can face it in future and know it for what it is. And above all, I am grateful that you accept me with my flaws and know that I will try my best to overcome them.

I am grateful to you, and I am grateful for you.