You will have rugs, fabulous, fabulous rugs.

Here are some words from a letter in the Sydney Morning Herald of June 25th, 2016 …

“ … for those who have chosen to live under God’s rule it would be wrong to marry someone of the same sex. … unlawful in God’s sight … negative consequences …sin …God’s standards … our world is worse off when we ignore His will … God’s laws … “

Gay marriage will not find, or lose you a job.

Gay marriage will not increase the price of groceries, clothing, electricity, gas, water, rent or housing. It will not increase or lower interest rates, or your taxes. It will not raise or lower the price of stocks.

Gay marriage will not blow you up, shoot you or rape you, or your children, if you do not want to be gay.

Gay marriage will not send you to war, then praise you and promptly forget about you when (or if) you return. It will not compulsorily acquire your home for a highway, chop down your trees, poison your water, or excavate your backyard for a mine.

Gay marriage will not cut your aged or disability pension, defund women’s refuges, slash arts funding, privatise Medicare, the ABC and SBS, or dismiss the elderly as an ageing burden or youth as shiftless layabouts. It will not cause you to be regarded a worthless, bludging parasite on the face of humanity if, for whatever reason, you are unemployed or physically or mentally ill.

Gay marriage will not shriek at you as if you are stupid and cannot tell fact from fiction. Gay marriage will not destroy the public health system, public education, public transport or public infrastructure in order to make a quick quid, and then expect you to be grateful.

We have governments for these.

Gay marriage may make some a little grumpy or tetchy in the head for a bit because they subscribe to a belief system or ideology which they feel everybody else should subscribe to whether they want to or not, but they will live and their dog/and or cat will continue to like them and ask them for food.

Gay marriage will cause a sharp and sudden spike in demand for marriage celebrants, function and reception halls, the hiring of, hotel rooms, caravan parks, perhaps tents, hiking gear, flannel shirts (?), caterers, caterers who require food so that they may cater, from butchers, grocers, bakers, bought from suppliers who buy the food from producers, icing sugar and dried fruits and little plastic bits and pieces, figurines and flowers perhaps, flowers, yes, flowers from florists who source them from producers, there will be waiters, servers, general staff and managers to manage them in the function and reception halls that have been hired and paid for, possibly recommended to others, possibly not.

There will be clothes to be bought, furniture, bits and pieces of this and that, premises to rent, premises to buy, things to change, labourers and tradesmen hired to change them, labourers and tradesman who will purchase their tools and their materials in order to labour and to trade from those who supply them from those who produce them.

There will be rugs, fabulous, fabulous rugs, and there will be “You are NOT putting that there” and there will be “You haven’t said anything, is it good or bad?” and there will be, “No, I like it, it’s soup, it’s nice”, and there will be “I don’t care if you don’t like it, you can tell me”, and there will be “I’m telling you” and “What, you don’t like it?”, “No! Yes! The fu – You know what I mean, it’s fine, for God’s sake”, and then there will be stony silences and stolen, sulky glances and “Oh, I don’t know” and “I’m sorry”, “That’s okay”, “Are you sure?”, “Yes, I’m fine. What do you want for dinner?”, “We’ll go out. I feel like going out, why don’t we see a movie as well, I like … ” and “Yes, I’ve heard of that, it’s supposed to be good”, and there’ll be rugs, fabulous, fabulous rugs, and there’ll be , “That would look nice in the hallway. And the price, for what it is. I think we should get it”, “Yeah, fine, I want to go look at some DVD’s after this, did you feed the dog?”, “Yes”.

There will be.

“You know where I’d like to go for our 10th anniversary?”

“Am I mind reader? Let me guess. No, I give up. Tell me or I’ll shoot the dog.”

“Slovenia”.

” … “

“No, wait … “

” … “

Flights to be booked, people to book them, hotel rooms, the catering, this and that, from thee and thou, that and this, bits and pieces, “This would look nice in the … “, “The fucking hallway, yes, the hallway, Jesus”,

“You’re impossible”, “Yeah, fine, I want to look at some DVD’s after this, did you text home about the dog?”, “Yes”.

Gay marriage.

It will either make us stronger, or kill us all.

But there will be rugs, fabulous, fabulous rugs.

When he’s not blogging on his own site: Smelly Tongues, Ross Sharp is currently training house cats to live on a sole diet of Resch’s and meat pies. Further details as they come to hand.

Gay Things