Pretty boys

They're pretty, young, handsome, perfect, able-bodied, well-loved, social, have families that love them...

In fact, the young men in Get Up's new 'It's Time' campaign for equal marriage have only one obstacle to their idyllic life - marriage inequality. 

And that's the problem with this campaign which is entirely lacking in intersectional analysis of any kind.  I can hear the advertising agency now:

Shouldn't we include a person of colour?
Don't make it about issues.

But don't gay people have problems with their families?
Families will love them when they conform to societal ideals.

Aren't we making this unrealistic?
We want to make it simple for people to understand.

Aren't we making them too perfect?
They should be likeable, you know, TV likeable.

The message:
Gay people are just like us, only gay.  All they need to fit in is marriage rights, and then they'll be as close to normal as possible, and stop all this messy, sexual identity politics nonsense.

Some of us are republicans, or not, some want 2.5 kids, some want a house in the suburbs, some are urban, some rural, some want to be single, and have sex in tearooms and bathhouses, some want to pay for sex, some want a multitude of partners, some want a multitude of relationships, some want monogamy, some polygamy, and the variety is endless.

Marriage equality will be true when all queers can get married, in the ways they want to get married.

Legal rights offered to those conforming widens the gap further, strengthening pressure from family and society for gay couples to marry and conform in the way that common-law heterosexual couples experience it.  But queer relationships have a history of not conforming to the status quo, and encouragement to conform to a heterosexual model stresses queer relationships more than heterosexual ones.

I think that perhaps the pressure of producing children on childfree couples might be a similar one.  Childfree couples live a life that is radically different than what is considered "normal" within heterosexual culture, and the pressure to conform by producing children requires not only that they push back, but also explanations, many of which are intrusive and personal.

I was married.  I wanted to be.  It made a great deal of difference when I was in hospital, and when I was sick.  Saying that my wife was there, was vastly different than saying "my partner", or "my girlfriend."  Regardless of the comfort level of the hospital staff, there is a certain level of respect that is required legally when someone is a spouse.

It's very different.  I'm scared of being different again, but I still understand that it is not acceptable to take a privilege at the expense of someone else.  Some privilege I cannot help but have.  I can be aware of those, and notice them, and deal with them, and do what I can to mitigate the impact of that privilege on others.

I can still try not to grab for things which others do not have.