A wound opens on the skyline of Melbourne. It looks like a black gashing zipper bleeding into air, and as it unzips, it slowly reveals a pink amorphous void within. The best physicists from around the world have studied the Great Zipper since its emergence fourth months ago and so far, the prevailing hypothesis is some new electromagnetic phenomenon caused by an unknown particle interaction which is a descriptive elaboration on “we don’t know yet”. Most people in the country however, are more interested in a national plebiscite which is the result of a decade of political stagnation on the issue of same sex marriage. Experts believe the country is divided into two ideological groups: Progressives and Conservatives.
Although on the surface Progressives and Conservatives wear the same type of meat shell, internally, the country is divided into two disjoint spheres of influence. It is nearly impossible for a Progressive to communicate with a Conservative and vice versa. Both groups have highly respected members of society on their side. Both groups have written pages and pages of argumentation for why their point of view is correct. These pages are frequently read and disseminated amongst members in their own group. Occasionally a Conservative might read a Progressive argument or a Progressive a Conservative argument but dismissal is near instant. Sometimes there would be what appears to be a reasoned discussion but this engagement is illusory.
I was recently in the live audience of a popular political discourse show. One Important Australian Person (IAP) speaks at lengths about her own experience as a queer person and the moral imperative to pass marriage equality legislation as soon as possible. Another IAP counters with an equally long story about his own experience as a blue-blooded Australian and the moral imperative to preserve immutable cultural values and traditions. The first speaker accuses the second of bigotry, the second accuses the first of intolerance. Thunderous applause on both sides. Later these two IAPs enjoy an uncomfortable carpool back to Parliament together, make small talk about the state of agriculture in Queensland, fantasize silently about opening a trendy café in Melbourne. Hold hands. Annihilation unzips overhead, dripping red effluvia into drinking water.
That night I have some Koscis and kebabs with two friends. I’d been thinking about the plebiscite and parroting something I’d read in the papers, I said: “why can’t we have a reasonable discussion about same sex marriage?”
My first friend is a gay law student on a Tren cycle and fuelled with his monthly roid rage, he immediately shuts me down. “The two sides aren’t equal. Look,” he points at me with a ring finger, pausing for a bite of tabouli, aggressively flexing his traps. “We’re talking about human rights here. I’m not going to be treated like a second class citizen and neither should future generations of queer kids. We’re talking about our lives here and you want a ‘reasonable discussion’? We’ve changed the law for interracial marriage. This is no different.”
My other friend is a child of Viet refugees and hasn’t exercised since the Gillard government. Unfortunately, she’s also a law student. Law is the new Arts degree. “Of course you’d say that. You’re so full of ideology. Why this unjustified jump to human rights? Not legalising same sex marriage isn’t the same thing as oppressing gay people. Inequality doesn’t mean injustice. Feminists don’t go around demanding men to be made anatomically identical to women. We recognise areas of inequity and that’s what we focus on. I don’t think marriage is one of those issues. Honestly, we’ve been talking about this for ten years and the best argument I’ve heard seems to amount to: why not? To that I want to say, a lack of reason isn’t a reason for change. This debate,” she waves her garlic mayo stained hands in the air. “You know it’s really about cultural engineering.”
“Wow, I’m full of ideology? You sound like your political philosophy final. Your side is obsessed with traditional values, Christian values, and all that and I’m not saying that’s bad, but that’s no different than our ‘social justice warrior’ ideology and you know it. Here’s the facts: we know exactly what will happen if we legalise same sex marriage. A bunch of people who want to get married will get married. That’s it. We move on with our lives and maybe think about the real issues like that giant fucking zipper over our heads.” We all look up. It’s a beautiful night sky scarred by jagged pieces of dark cellulite.
“No. We know exactly what will happen if same sex marriage doesn’t come to be. It’s the society as we know it. Having same sex marriage won’t improve the lives of the vast majority of queer people and that’s because honestly marriage isn’t a big deal for most queer couples anyway and the symbolic value of having it is, well, negligible. It won’t make our lives better; remember Orlando. Why are we putting all our hopes on this one intractable issue? Where were the super-marches for Safe Schools? On the other hand, we don’t know what will happen if we legalise same sex marriage and I mean that in the long run. I think society needs to have a balance of progressive and conservative voices and right–”
“That’s apologist bull and you know it. A commitment to the traditional definition of marriage even if for, let’s say, reasonable conservative reasons like yours exists just as a sophisticated way to marginalise queer people. You worry about the long term effects on our society? Let’s be real, we’ve done so many things that were bad for our society and no one ever batted an eyelid. We had the Stolen Generation. We had the White Australia Act. We had Kanakas, actual slaves, in Queensland. The reason why there’s so much resistance to this mere shred of a possibility of a bad decision? Homophobia. There’s a reason why almost all legislation just gets dealt with in parliament. This is personal for us. Not to mention, the vast majority of conservative voices aren’t like yours.”
“That’s classist.” I edge in. He shoots me a bloodshot veiny look –a silent “shut the fuck up”. “I think you’re getting a bit emotional,” my unfit friend politely coughs. She looks a tiny bit embarrassed. “Look, we can’t talk about this anymore it’ll ruin us. At this point we’re just emoting about abstractions and values and that’s just not conducive to a rational discussion.”
“Don’t you dare take the high ground. This is what I mean. You people always want to see yourselves as the rational philosophers and the rest of us irrational plebs. That’s ideology. You’re the same as us. I mean this debate is political fiction. All this talk about reasoned debate, abstract values, social standards –these are all just distractors. The reality is that we’ve had a decade long divisive discussion over, what is essentially, a semantic issue. It shouldn’t really matter whether it’s called a civil union or marriage. You’ve been conditioned to care about it as an unshakeable pillar of society. I’ve been conditioned to care about it as a paramount issue for all gay people. This might be the roids talking but fuck!”
Another late night snack ruined. The kebab guy, who knows me as that immigrant from China, and who I know as that immigrant from Afghanistan, looks up on “fuck”. We make eye contact.
I walk home along a storm drain and spot a pile of dried pufferfish carcases caught in the leaf gutter. I’m suddenly sympathetic to the pain they must have felt suffocating on land, dehydrating on a wire mesh grille. Did a careless fisherman, coming home from the coast, throw them from his truck as he drove past? A smidge over the speed limit, flung out already half-dead at >60km/hr, hitting rough concrete, oblivion. On display, my brothers and sisters lie spread out in fish markets, engorged eye sockets soaking in flaccid fluro lights. At night, a gaping sore replaces the Southern Cross. Coming undone as it descends on the city, neurons fire, electrons leak through its unzipping void.
