Persecution Complex 2014

Persecution Complex

(Unintended Consequences)

"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the poweress means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral" - Paulo Freire

"Those who do not move, do not notice their chains" - Rosa Luxemburg

What ever happened to radicalisation? How can we march in the name of dead men, Stonewall rioters, our own freedom and those other LGBT people who have no freedom at all? Especially in the face of our ultimate willingness to be silenced and our need to be accepted, not to change our surroundings, but merely to be accepted. How can we claim pride given the level of our conformity? Why do we accept the proposition that our difference has to be legislated for?

What have we done with our anger? Besides internalise it? Social, religious and political intolerance has not gone away. How would the generations that came before us, our gay-fore-fathers, who’s trauma we carry, react to our notion of equality? Isn’t our campaign for equivalence simply far too conservative an aim, given the precarious nature of the freedom we seek? If we are to fight, should we not fight for something more tangible?

In order to be entirely equal with our heterosexual counterparts, given the hetero-centric nature of the negotiation. We must by definition and subsequence become more or less the same. Is this what we actually desire? This equality may indeed have unintended consequences but not in the way we expect.

In many ways the referendum on marriage equality that will be put before the Irish people in 2015, will cement those fundamental rights which we already have and of course will introduce new freedoms and responsibilities, however we are already entitled to these as citizens. Rights which are already enforced in relation to our heterosexual family, friends and colleagues. In accepting the referendum are we not also accepting the notion that our culture, existence and nature of our love should indeed be legislated for. There is already huge amount of mistrust and discourse about the nature of successive Irish government’s motivations, especially in recent years. So why are we fighting? Who are we fighting? And who are the school yard children jeering us on?

Throughout our fight for equivalence, at almost every stage of our liberation we have lost an element of our collective idea of what it means to be gay. 

Media re-presentation of our culture is predominantly based on stereotypical depictions with which we have little choice but to try and relate. Political representation is growing but ineffective and we should question the motivation of these types of intervention. Aspects of our culture, individual and collective identities (that which sets our community apart) have been homogenised and cleansed, to make us palatable for a mainstream sense of normality. Characteristics of our culture that are deemed unwanted by society are forced underground or ignored completely

Before entering the poll booth or registering to vote we have to ask what we are registering for and why are we validating this particular proposition? We have come a long way in our liberation, and in theory the Irish government could grant same-sex marriage, tomorrow without ever having to undergo the emotional and financial cost of a referendum. But we have only ever been presented with one alternative to the solution of our inequity. One that is not being given any real chance to be debated on either side.

Having a referendum that validates or invalidates our relationships as being the same as or equal to heterosexual relationships, infers that there is in fact a discernible difference between us in the first place, it implies that there is an imbalance or inequity which need to be addressed.

Of course the two groups are different, but no different than any other two groups when compared to each other. It is the nature of our capacity to love, marry and rear children that has become central to opposition to same-sex marriage, yet this opposition fail to realise that it is this capacity in which we are most equal. If indeed legislation needs to be enacted to provide us and our children with an equal standing in society than it does not lay within the quagmire of human sexual-relations. If changes are needed than it lays in the education and enforcement of criminal procedures in hate crimes. Not in securing votes of a false alternative to our rights as citizens.

Of course equality is ultimately an admirable aim, in a long continuum of aims towards liberation. But our equality has always and will always be caveated by hetero-centric ideals of what is acceptable. Any negotiation to effect change in our actual day to day existence as gay people, commences from a place of weakness as it is takes place in the face of overwhelming prejudice. Change will only take place once we address the issues we cannot legislate for.