Legislation and Generalisation, Bigotry and Toleration | Sam Marks

 

Sam Marks explores the cons and pros of having partners in pink after the LGBT Ally week

     Allies are a necessary component in any social uprising of a repressed class of society. In the early 19^th century, men were quick to take sides during the women’s civil rights movement, and made their opinions, bigoted or not, well known to the world. This does not bode as similar a scenario for the gay rights movement.Women during their civil rights movement didn’t have the disadvantage of being a minority, and were not asking for radical changes of religiously influenced socio-judicial institutions such as marriage. That movement also has the advantage of being the one of the oldest, carrying on to this day both nationally and on a global scale. With women on average still receiving less pay than their male counterparts in a substantial part of the western world, it probably should come as no surprise our somewhat idiotic world is slow on the uptake.The gay rights movement meanwhile has been bubbling under the surface for decades since the mid-19^th century. But one could say it was centuries too if it weren’t for the Dark Ages, with the ancient Greeks obviously taken into account. Even in mythology one would struggle to find any bone fide gay deity or hero, villainous or not. The Roman army bonding rituals seem to be casually overlooked in history class. Even the bible didn’t expressively define what happened at Sodom and Gomorrah (a paradoxical cause of much glee for both bible-hurlers and bible-bashers alike).As such the gays have been hidden for quite some time, forgotten and nearly erased from history. Late-18^th century England had brothels, Jack-The-Ripper and other forms of well-known depravity, yet Oscar Wilde was the only gay man that springs to mind from that era and the only one of the three mentioned who was arrested for “gross indecency”. It seems such a shame they couldn’t muster up the courage back then, even under law, to correctly term it “consensual homosexual sex”. The act itself may as well have been called Voldemort by the absolute terror and disgust it caused merely trying to say it out loud little more than one hundred years ago.And this long-ingrained thinking has haunted us ever since. Much like the whites used African-American criminal stereotypes in an attempt to degrade the racial minority, millions jumped on the HIV band-wagon as evidence that the homosexual orientation was against nature and doomed for failure for social integration. We appeared out of nowhere, alien and unwelcome to the current social etiquette. If it weren’t for the educated majority to support us, we should as well have called it a day and continue living our metaphorically hidden life in caves, eating “da-poo-poo” as Uganda’s Martin Ssempa so kindly puts it.But now in the Western world, homosexual practices are not illegal anymore with finally a small slice of the equality pie. With still marriage and parenting in the mix however, it still not as substantial as out host’s other esteemed guests, and the length of time it has taken to get it has made the slice a little stale for a success. While we should be humble for this, we often don’t when our heterosexual counterparts often seem to desecrate the very idea of marriage and child-rearing themselves, something which ironically they’re so foolhardy in protecting.Now we have the transgender and bi movements gaining speed as well an asking for their own slice of the equality pie. To the completely uneducated bystander, one could forgive them for being a little taken aback by the constant onslaught of “should have this” and “should have that” which to them might seem arbitrary from a legal standpoint. If only the knee-jerk reactions were not so predictable.For the homosexual it’s “you can marry, you can adopt kids, what more do you want?” For the bisexual it’s “hey, you can flick between gay and straight if you want, nothing’s stopping you, and they both have the same rights as each other”. For the trans it’s “nothing’s stopping you having the surgery, so long as you save up the money”. This isn’t even including the other sexual/gender orientation standpoints that some other individuals take, often causing confusion, eventually minorities overlooking further minorities in an equality-hurling mess.On one side, having allies seems like an admission of defeat, that we can’t fight our own battles with wit over sheer force of numbers. In a weird way, I feel having LGBT Allies helps stabilise this process and direct us to common goals. And yes, while they can misconceive and misconstrue as we all do from time to time, they have the greatest asset of all for a majority; a mutual willingness to learn from each other. In the end, all you need is a good ear, a sound logic, a functioning mind and heart to be an LGBT Ally.