My name is Sandy and I am a fiancée, mother, friend, and primary school teacher.
My gorgeous fiancée of two years, Louise, is an ex-nurse who now works as a medical equipment consultant to hospitals. We have two beautiful boys from my previous marriage – aged 11 and 9.
We are a loving and close family, just like any other. Except in one way: my partner and I are both women so under Australian law, cannot marry. Many people do not regard us as a family.
Louise and I have tried over the years to prepare our children for the reality of our circumstances and the discrimination they may encounter. We want them to be prepared and confident, strong and proud of our family.
We have tried to create understanding and patience towards others who don’t know us – yet see fit to label us – in the hope of preventing anger and fighting.
Our youngest often asks us, “Mummies are you going to be engaged forever? Why don’t you get married?” It’s been hard trying to explain that our Government won’t let us get married.
Dylan came home one day and told me that kids at school had been teasing him, telling him that we are strange, that we are not a family. I was worried he was hurt and angry. When I asked him about how he felt and responded he said:
You were right Mummy, they don’t understand, so I didn’t get angry I just explained it to them patiently. I told them like you told me – that families come in all shapes and sizes and that not all families have a mummy and a daddy.
Some have only a mummy or a daddy, some have only their grandparents or two daddies or like mine two mummies. A family only needs people who love each other. There is nothing wrong with my family we love each other and we are a family.
We have never been prouder than we were right then, and we knew that somewhere at some time we must have done something right as parents.
My oldest has often had similar experiences and he has found it harder. I will never forget what he once said to me:
Mummy the government are like our teachers, they need to set a good example for everyone else. If they don’t accept us a family, then other people won’t either.
This is why we continue to hope and fight for marriage equality. We don’t want to be considered special or better than anyone else, we only want the same rights as every other loving couples – the right to be legally married.
As an adult I know how hard it is to hear people abuse me and make assumptions about me based on the fact that I am in a same-sex relationship. It would be so much harder for a young child or young adult to cope with, whether they themselves are gay or in a family with gay parents. I know the government has laws that are supposed to protect individuals against any discrimination, but these seem tokenistic.
Thanks to GetUp and Australian Marriage Equality I now have the opportunity to share my story and my concerns with the Prime Minister.
As part of a charity auction, we won a dinner with her at the Lodge in Canberra. Louise and I will be there with other couples in same-sex relationships, and we’ll be able to ask her directly why the Government sees my relationship as less important than others in our community.
I’ll ask her why she and others in heterosexual relationships are more deserving of marriage than we are. I’ll ask her what I should tell my children when they ask when their mummies will be married.
Until the Government legally recognises that same sex couples are no different to heterosexual couples and should have the same and equal rights in every area in life including marriage, this discrimination will never end.
The Government must take the first step and set the right example for all others to follow.
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