As of about half an hour ago, New Zealand now has marriage equality. Marriage is no longer a heterosexual privilege in my country, and I couldn’t be prouder. But as amazing as this is, it still doesn’t erase the fact that one of the most important people in my life growing up was taken away from me because of his sexual preference.
I’ve written about this on a past blog, but I feel that it’s necessary to write about again considering this pretty big milestone in New Zealand’s history because it’s important to me and I wish he was here to have witnessed it.
My godfather was an amazing man, and he also happened to be gay.
When I was eight, my godfather fell victim to homophobia in one of the most brutal ways possible. He was beaten up by two men who purposefully lured him from a gay bar and left him for dead in a block of public toilets. He may have remained breathing, but two disgusting excuses for human beings took the life of my godfather that night. And I never got him back. No matter how hard everyone tried.
After the attack, he became an angry, mean person. I knew that it was due to the brain damage he sustained and the sheer experience of coming that close to death because of something so personal, but it didn’t make him any easier to be around. He would almost always be drunk and/or stoned when he visited and he would often take his frustrations out on me by telling me I wouldn’t amount to anything.
The last time I saw my godfather was eleven years ago. He had come to help us move house, but spent the entire time sneaking swigs of gin and smoking joints disguised as cigarettes. His behaviour got to the point where my parents decided that he needed to go home and sleep it off, but by the time my parents finally got him home and he got incredibly abusive towards them, they had decided they’d had enough. They cut him out of our lives.
He passed away in September 2009. No one knew about it until well after he had already been cremated so we didn’t get the opportunity to go and say goodbye. He died an angry, lonely and pretty horrible man. Homophobia did that to him.
He was part of our family. We loved him so very, very much.
The passing of the Marriage Equality bill doesn’t mean that homophobes who are willing to beat someone within an inch of their lives no longer exist, but it does mean that homosexuality is no longer legally different from heterosexuality and I think my godfather would have found a little bit of peace in that. Thank you, Louisa Wall and the 76 other MPs who voted for the bill. Thank you.