Wishing on a rainbow

With the renewed debate on marriage equality happening across Australia at the moment, I wanted to share a column I wrote in The West Australian a few years ago — it is one of the best things I wrote in my career just because of the impact and response I had from readers as well as from my own family. Despite all the haters who told me what a sin homosexuality is, I loved sharing this story because of the groundswell of positive reponses I received from families that had gone through the same thing or were in the middle of dealing with news that a son/daughter/sister/brother/mother/father was in love with a member of the same sex. While the majority of my generation has accepted that gay and lesbian relationships are just the same as heterosexual connections, I know that my kids will not even know the difference. All that my kids will know is that families come in all shapes and sizes and just because their cousin has two mummys, does not mean that he is any different to them for having a mum and a dad. This article has been adapted from its published state.

Everyone loves a wedding, especially my family. After years of watching my older cousins get married one by one, it was my turn to tie the knot in 2011.

There were shrieks and tears when news of our engagement quickly spread through the family.

Phone calls came in from across the country as relatives started thinking about coming home west for the festivities.

We quickly came to realise that our wedding would be more about the family than it would be about us, as a couple. Not that that was such a bad thing.

Weddings are about two families joining together despite their differences, standing on common ground as their children publicly declare their love for each other in front of those that mean the most to them.

If you take the schmaltz out of it, a wedding in the family, in our family at least, is seen as a great excuse to have a party, to reunite the family from across the country and overseas in celebration.

In our family, weddings are about sharing good food and wine, laughing until your cheeks hurt and dancing — dancing til you kick your shoes off and then dancing some more.

My sister Lex and I are very close even though we couldn’t be more different. There was never any question in my mind that she would be one of my bridesmaids when I got married and from the moment I got engaged she wanted to know how she could help.

By the time the wedding day came around, Lex had gone to extraordinary efforts to help ensure that everything ran smoothly.

She hosted my hen’s party, organised the music and helped me choose the wedding dress.

She endured countless dress fittings and the odd Bridezilla moment (okay, so there might have been a few).

But she didn’t do it on her own. Lex’s partner Karen was also instrumental in helping us prepare for our wedding.

They both looked gorgeous and one of my favourite photos from the day is my sister and her girlfriend beaming at the camera, looking extraordinarily happy.

And happy they are.

They both have good jobs, they’ve managed to buy a house at a time when finding anything affordable in Perth is a scary prospect, they have great friends and since the wedding they have supported each other through a pregnancy and the very early arrival of my nephew. Like any heterosexual parent, they visited him every day in the neonatal ward at hospital until he was big enough to come home. Like any parent of a toddler, they have endured the temper tantrums and sleepless nights but also the great joys that a child brings into your life.

Theirs is a picture of happy, contented, domestic bliss.

Like my husband and I, they roll their eyes at each other’s idiosyncracies but like any couple that is meant to be, they bring out the best in each other.

The day after our wedding, when my posse of cousins and extended family met for breakfast, nursing sore heads and dissecting the night that was, the question on everyone’s lips was “when’s the next wedding?”

All eyes landed on Lex and Karen and grand plans were made of heading to Vegas or a beachside resort for their nuptials — somewhere gay marriage was legal.

Thanks to our archaic laws, my sister and her girlfriend will have to go to great expense (I mean more than the usual wedding), if they ever want to get married.

Unfortunately for them, they have not been given the choice of being able to get married in the town they both grew up in, where they live and call home.

And even if they do marry elsewhere — and don’t get me wrong, I would love a trip to Vegas — but this country will not recognise their union, even though they are deemed to live in a defacto relationship.

In the very place where they have built a life for themselves and are productive, tax-paying members of society, it will be like their marriage never took place.

One of my mum’s biggest fears when she found out my sister was a lesbian was that she would never get to see her walk down the aisle or have grandchildren.

But guess what? She and Karen have given my mum a grandchild and both of their names are on that child’s birth certificate.

My two girls are lucky enough to have a cousin as well as two aunties who love and spoil them to bits.

Fortunately for our family, we live in an era where my sister doesn’t have to live a lie. She doesn’t live with the hatred or vilification that others in her shoes have had to endure in decades gone by.

Lex and Karen can walk down the street hand in hand, go out for dinner and buy groceries together without fear of being the target of some awful hate crime.

Why then, when we have progressed so far in so many different ways, are we still locked in the past, with our politicians insistent that the institution of marriage should be between a man and a woman.

I first put pen to paper on this subject in 2011, when the Labor Party was due to discuss the matter at its national conference. More than three years later, nothing has changed and we are back discussing the issue yet again. In the meantime, Ireland has voted in favour of changing the laws to recognise gay marriage in a national referendum and Australian politicians on both sides of the political spectrum are of the opinion that 2015 may just be the year for change in this country.

I’m the first person to say that everyone is entitled to their own opinion but this is an opinion that does not affect anyone except for families like mine, who want to celebrate their relative’s love and happiness with a wedding.

I want to be able to fuss over my sister and make her feel like a princess for a day. I want her to be embarrassed at her hen’s party, just as I was at mine.

My mum wants to go overboard with wedding plans and my dad would love to have a special moment with his youngest child before she marries her chosen life partner.

These are moments that every mum or dad wants for their child and why shouldn’t they have them?

I want to be a bridesmaid at her wedding.

Who are our politicians to say that she is not entitled to the same happiness that I am allowed as a heterosexual?

She didn’t choose her sexuality, as much as I had no choice in who I fell in love with.

People might go their whole lives without getting married and good on them for choosing to do so. But being married is actually pretty great. It’s a feeling I can’t quite describe and nobody, gay or straight, should be legally restricted from sharing that joy.