The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus performs on the steps of San Francisco City Hall as gay couples marry inside. Photo credit: Thom Watson
Maybe this is a subject that, as a heterosexual woman, I shouldn’t venture near. Yet as the most devoted couples I have known have almost all been gay (men), I do feel I might have something to say now that gay marriage is being repudiated with such hostility by, among others, the Catholic Church.
When I was two years old, my parents came to London. We lived in a tiny flat opposite the library in Primrose Hill, and next to us were a gay couple, Ken and Henry. One (I don’t remember which) was an antiques collector, and the other the very first costume designer for the brand-new Dr Who series. Primrose Hill in those days was not at all the swanky suburb it is now, but a genuinely raffish mix of bohemians and council tenants. My mother has always adored gay men, and vice versa, and soon a flood of gorgeous paste jewels and scraps of fabrics left over from the Doctor’s encounters with aliens came my way from either Ken or Henry. I played with these endlessly, loved our neighbours’ kindness and maybe that’s one reason why – apart from a tendency to find them sensitive, funny, gifted and brave – I also grew up with strong feelings of sympathy for gay people. But they didn’t have an easy time of it, and one day Ken and Henry had a terrible row – so terrible that one, let’s say Henry, tried to gas himself. Unlike Sylvia Plath, who died round the corner the following year, he was unsuccessful. But his lover, who found him, called the ambulance because it was clear he needed help immediately. There was just one problem. It was 1961, and suicide was still illegal – the law changed later that year. But as things were, if you were suspected of trying to kill yourself you might be revived only to face a sentence akin to that for murder (the law, what an ass). So my mother, whom he had also called for help thought quickly. There had to be an explanation for why the flat stank of gas, even with the windows open. She put on a tiny pot of milk, and made it boil over. The ambulance men now had an excuse not to inquire any further, and Henry was saved. Such was their gratitude that they gave (or sold at a very low price) my mother a magnificent mirror which came from the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. I am proud to say that I now own this, and it graces our sitting room immeasurably with its lovely cracked bronze gilt frame and speckled glass. The couple, deeply shaken, made it up and lived happily together for the rest of their lives. Would they have liked to marry? I don’t doubt it – and so did another couple of men whose devotion outlasted that of almost everyone else my parents knew. One was a French cousin of Gore Vidal, and the other was a Filipino man, as gentle as people from that sad place often are. After over 40 years together in a little cottage in Tuscany, the Frenchman became gravely ill. He was the one with money, and wanted to leave his partner in life his property. He could only do so by adopting him as his son. Well, no son could have nursed the poor man so tenderly, and nobody could have been more broken-hearted when he died. Years later, he still can’t get over it, or speak his partner’s name without tears. So why on earth shouldn’t they have been able to get married? They couldn’t have children together, but that’s the case with many heterosexual couples. They were both Catholic by upbringing, but repudiated by their Church. None but they knows what they did alone together, but that is scarcely any business of ours anyway. Why shouldn’t their love, fidelity, trust and kindness have been recognised as what it was? Why did one have to pretend to be the son of the other? Does God, if you believe in God, not create homosexual animals as well as humans? I don’t know. But every time I see a picture of another beaming gay couple in the papers, I feel like cheering – until I remember that the reason why they’re thought newsworthy is that they’re still supposed to be freaks. A version of this post first appeared on Amanda Craig’s website, www.amandacraig.com.