Returning to questions Ake asked me, further up this page.

I don't know if the 'take-up' of the option of gay marriage is low, as I suspect it depends on which particular concoction of statistics is at hand. I do have two observations, however.

Firstly, the commercialised gay subculture invests heavily (both financially and symbolically) in encouraging a lifestyle premised on hedonism. Generations of gay men have now grown up thinking that ''''the scene'''' (as it's commonly called, at least here in the UK) is the be-all and end-all of being gay. If you buy into that belief, then the 'settling down' option can look dull by comparison.

Secondly, a small minority of gay activists have vocaly criticised gay marriage as an 'impersonation' of heterosexual conventions and thus some sort of sell-out of homosexuality's radical potential.

Unsurprisingly, I don't share either view (it would make this post intolerably long to go into why, though if you're desperate to know, ask away).

Ake's second question asks if I equate homosexual rights with the situation of other sexual minorities. I'd have to answer that on a case by case basis, but my rule of thumb is that if sexual activity of any kind is conducted unexploitatively and by consenting individuals, then the law has no business in interfering. Also, at a slight tangent, I can think of plenty of heterosexual set-ups that wouldn't meet those criteria.


For what it's worth, one main reason my partner and I opted for a civil partnership was that it secured us some equality with married couples over things like inheritance & taxation matters (how romantic!!!!) and next-of-kin rights. My partner is a nurse and has witnessed ghastly occasions where a long-term same-sex partner of a patient is elbowed out of the way by a 'biological family' who suddenly appear, often after years of no contact, to seize the decisions over how the patient should be treated. I'd love to know what our most vociferous anti-gay contributors think about that - or about the case of a friend of a friend who was evicted from his home of forty years by the distant (and hysterically homophobic) relatives of his deceased partner.

I have gone on a bit!! Happy Christmas.