On the 28th August 1963 Dr Martin Luther King, Jr gave undeniably one of the greatest civil rights speeches in history: “I Have A Dream”. In this speech Dr King talked about how he dreamt that one day his four child would not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character and how the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. This powerful speech was one of the markers which led to the political freedom of all African Americans. It’s with this speech that I judge the content of our government and our society. I too have a dream that one day I will live in a quaint suburb with my husband and our two beautiful children. I too have a dream that my children won’t be judged or mocked because they have two fathers instead of a mother and a father. I too have a dream that one day I can become a teacher or a doctor without fear of losing my job because of who and what I am, a proud gay man.
I write this open letter to all the politicians and the everyday citizen who can’t understand that only having half the rights of a heterosexual is not equal to being an equal citizen. Civil partnership, while a landmark in Ireland, is no where close to the homosexual community being equal to our heterosexual brothers and sisters but rather it segregates us further. Since homosexuality was legalised in Ireland in 1993, we as a community have come a long way towards our goal of being equal citizens but we still have a long way to go. Ireland became a free republic under the illusion that all of her people would be free and equal citizens but clearly our government of today don’t have the same idea as those brave fighters.
Many of those who oppose what we believe in use God and the Bible as a sword to pierce our confidence as a community and as individuals. I feel that God in all his omnipotence surely is impossible of making mistakes, therefore it’s illogical to think that we are mistakes. Jesus also said “Love one another as I have loved you” and no where in the Bible does Jesus show no love towards anyone. Again logically Jesus loves everyone: gay, straight, white, black, Asians, men and women so we ourselves must love each other.
Another sword used to pierce us is the argument that homosexuals are not capable of raising and maintaining happy and loving families. This in particular is aimed at children, that there’s no way two men or two women can raise a child the same as a heterosexual couple or even a single parent. Studies are proving that we too are capable of raising happy and well loved children. Moreover, I feel in myself that no one could raise my child better than me and my future husband.
At the 2010 March For Marriage I heard some amazing speeches but there was one thing in particular that really caught my attention. “Ireland is nothing without her people, Ireland is her people.” So I ask, how can we as a nation move forward when at least 10% of us are still considered second-class citizens under our own constitution. Change is coming and it’s foolish to deny the one constant in life. For our beautiful country to be a great nation, we the Irish must join together to fight the hypocrisy of our government and allow all of us to be 100% equal and not just 50%.
I too have a dream today, that my children will grow into strong, confident adults who will never have to worry about what they are but only about who they are.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Desperate or Romantic?
I have two very sexually frustrated friends, one is single and the other is in a relationship. The single friend's sexual frustration is mostly considered desperate or even tragic, while the friend in a relationship who's sexually frustrated is waiting until his girlfriend is ready and he's called romantic. It made me think, that's the difference between being in a relationship and being single when it comes to sexual frustration, what defines being desperate or being romantic?
Understandable being in a relationship, my friend must have a lot of patience and a lot of like for this girl to wait for her to be ready. Even though he hasn't had sex in a few months he's decided to stay with her instead of looking for his bit of some other experienced girl.
But what about my single friend? Why should he be called desperate because he's waiting for the right girl to come around? Surely he should be considered romantic for waiting for a girlfriend instead of just sleeping around like some common trollop.
Then there is the final category, what do we call those who are very sexually frustrated but have no desire to be in a relationship? Would we consider them tragic or desperate?
Understandable being in a relationship, my friend must have a lot of patience and a lot of like for this girl to wait for her to be ready. Even though he hasn't had sex in a few months he's decided to stay with her instead of looking for his bit of some other experienced girl.
But what about my single friend? Why should he be called desperate because he's waiting for the right girl to come around? Surely he should be considered romantic for waiting for a girlfriend instead of just sleeping around like some common trollop.
Then there is the final category, what do we call those who are very sexually frustrated but have no desire to be in a relationship? Would we consider them tragic or desperate?
Monday, April 19, 2010
Fetish
The definition of fetish is: a form of sexual desire in which gratification depends to an abnormal degree on some object or item of clothing or part of the body.
During the course of one of our many in depth conversations at Insomnia, me and the guys came onto the topic of fetish. We were there saying what our particular fetish was and some of the more common ones were mentioned: particular ethnicity, biting, S&M, toys, etc. One of them then said that they had a friend who had a fetish so weird that he actually felt ashamed about it. So as guys do we spent a good bit of time trying to guess what it is, each of our guesses got weirder and weirder but still we weren't close. Eventually the friend said that we'd never find out because it was just that bad. That got me thinking, after every single disgusting thing we could think of and still not be close, what exactly defines a "shameful" fetish?
Fetish range from the simple (ethnicity, toys, soft core sexual acts) to the extreme (2 Girls, 1 Cup, paedophilia, bestiality). When does a fetish simply stop being an innocent way of sexual experiementation and enter into the grounds of morally wrong. Let's look at paedophilia for a minute! For the most part, paedophilia is considered one of the most disgusting sexual acts/ crimes that anyone can commit. However, to the East, in some countries is paedophilia not only legal, it's encouraged. Hindu areas with arranged marriages between older gentlemen and young girls. Even in Japan child pornography is only recently illegal.
What about hardcore S&M? In the UK they're hoping to pass a law which will make porn illegal if it seems to cause any harm to another person, this law will effect anyone who's into a bit of pain.
What we consider wrong and disgusting others may consider enticing and sought after. I want to know your opinions on this subject.
During the course of one of our many in depth conversations at Insomnia, me and the guys came onto the topic of fetish. We were there saying what our particular fetish was and some of the more common ones were mentioned: particular ethnicity, biting, S&M, toys, etc. One of them then said that they had a friend who had a fetish so weird that he actually felt ashamed about it. So as guys do we spent a good bit of time trying to guess what it is, each of our guesses got weirder and weirder but still we weren't close. Eventually the friend said that we'd never find out because it was just that bad. That got me thinking, after every single disgusting thing we could think of and still not be close, what exactly defines a "shameful" fetish?
Fetish range from the simple (ethnicity, toys, soft core sexual acts) to the extreme (2 Girls, 1 Cup, paedophilia, bestiality). When does a fetish simply stop being an innocent way of sexual experiementation and enter into the grounds of morally wrong. Let's look at paedophilia for a minute! For the most part, paedophilia is considered one of the most disgusting sexual acts/ crimes that anyone can commit. However, to the East, in some countries is paedophilia not only legal, it's encouraged. Hindu areas with arranged marriages between older gentlemen and young girls. Even in Japan child pornography is only recently illegal.
What about hardcore S&M? In the UK they're hoping to pass a law which will make porn illegal if it seems to cause any harm to another person, this law will effect anyone who's into a bit of pain.
What we consider wrong and disgusting others may consider enticing and sought after. I want to know your opinions on this subject.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Precious
eePrecious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire is a movie by Lee Daniels based on the novel Push by Sapphire. The movie has enjoyed a rather unexpected international comercial sucess.
This hard-hitting drama follows the life of Clareece P. Jones (or Precious as she likes to be called), an obese, 16 year old, African-American growing up in 1987, Harlem. The movie is harsh, realistic, unrelenting and inspirational. The author Sapphire worked as a teacher in Harlem, so the character Precious is an amalgamation of all the girls the author has known. The movie is dark and gritty with a colour scheme to match. The only form of positivity comes from Precious' class, with a matching colou scheme to portray the levity.
The movie opens with writing in extremely bad English to highlight Precious' illiteracy. The first image is of a red scarf falling from a lamp post underneath a bridge. The colour red is one of the more prominent colours, it blatantly appears in almost every scene. Precious is soon expelled for being pregnant with her second child. We soon find out that Precious is a victim of constant verbal, physical and sexual abuse from her parents and, that both her pregnancies are a result of her father constantly raping her.
The movie quickly follows to Precious being accepted into an alternative school. Here we meet the classmates, other girls who've gone through their own personal hell. We're also introduced to the beacon of hope in the movie, the teacher Ms Blu Rain (played by Paula Patton). Precious soon goes to see a social worker (played by Mariah Carey) in order to try claim welfare. In these sessions we learn how badly Precious has been abused but we can't help but feel inspired by how strong she is.
The movie is mostly linear, with a few flashbacks to when she is abused, to which Daniels decides to graphically portray. Although an interesting technique that Daniels employs is that whenever Precious is being abused we're quickly taken to her imagination, where she imagines herself as a famous popstar instead of an abused teenager.
The film is set in Harlem and never once does it leave. The viewers are subjected to the dirty and unyielding part of New York constantly.
While Mariah Carey's skin colour is debateable there are very few caucasion actors (only three with speaking roles), which perfectly portrays Harlem of this time.
The choice of music is rather ironic, being almost completely dance and hip hop songs from the 80's. The main song "I Can See In Color" is a ballad written and performed by Mary J. Blige is poignantly played as Precious and her mother have a rather graphic and emotional physical showdown.
The cast is strong and well chosen. Precious is played by Gabourey Sidibe, with this being her first on-screen performance she's already nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars. The star performance however is by Mo'Nique who plays the abusive mother. The film ends with an emotional showdown between Mo'Nique, Mariah Carey and Gabourey which will bring a tear to the most hardened heart. Daniels employs another technique here. In order to keep the film as realistic as possible he would purposely neglect to tell the cast what was going on. In the final scene, only Mo'Nique knew the script, so the tears of Mariah Carey are very real.
Dark, dirty and gritty this realistic movie will shake you to your core but hopefully leave you feeling inspired.
This hard-hitting drama follows the life of Clareece P. Jones (or Precious as she likes to be called), an obese, 16 year old, African-American growing up in 1987, Harlem. The movie is harsh, realistic, unrelenting and inspirational. The author Sapphire worked as a teacher in Harlem, so the character Precious is an amalgamation of all the girls the author has known. The movie is dark and gritty with a colour scheme to match. The only form of positivity comes from Precious' class, with a matching colou scheme to portray the levity.
The movie opens with writing in extremely bad English to highlight Precious' illiteracy. The first image is of a red scarf falling from a lamp post underneath a bridge. The colour red is one of the more prominent colours, it blatantly appears in almost every scene. Precious is soon expelled for being pregnant with her second child. We soon find out that Precious is a victim of constant verbal, physical and sexual abuse from her parents and, that both her pregnancies are a result of her father constantly raping her.
The movie quickly follows to Precious being accepted into an alternative school. Here we meet the classmates, other girls who've gone through their own personal hell. We're also introduced to the beacon of hope in the movie, the teacher Ms Blu Rain (played by Paula Patton). Precious soon goes to see a social worker (played by Mariah Carey) in order to try claim welfare. In these sessions we learn how badly Precious has been abused but we can't help but feel inspired by how strong she is.
The movie is mostly linear, with a few flashbacks to when she is abused, to which Daniels decides to graphically portray. Although an interesting technique that Daniels employs is that whenever Precious is being abused we're quickly taken to her imagination, where she imagines herself as a famous popstar instead of an abused teenager.
The film is set in Harlem and never once does it leave. The viewers are subjected to the dirty and unyielding part of New York constantly.
While Mariah Carey's skin colour is debateable there are very few caucasion actors (only three with speaking roles), which perfectly portrays Harlem of this time.
The choice of music is rather ironic, being almost completely dance and hip hop songs from the 80's. The main song "I Can See In Color" is a ballad written and performed by Mary J. Blige is poignantly played as Precious and her mother have a rather graphic and emotional physical showdown.
The cast is strong and well chosen. Precious is played by Gabourey Sidibe, with this being her first on-screen performance she's already nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars. The star performance however is by Mo'Nique who plays the abusive mother. The film ends with an emotional showdown between Mo'Nique, Mariah Carey and Gabourey which will bring a tear to the most hardened heart. Daniels employs another technique here. In order to keep the film as realistic as possible he would purposely neglect to tell the cast what was going on. In the final scene, only Mo'Nique knew the script, so the tears of Mariah Carey are very real.
Dark, dirty and gritty this realistic movie will shake you to your core but hopefully leave you feeling inspired.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
