Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Why should I be allowed to marry? I chose to be gay

Our writer says that there's something to good-old English bigotry after all: being gay is a way of choosing strife instead of choosing life - and he should know

Andy West
Thursday 22 November 2012 15:30 GMT
Comments
So far 233 MPs have come out in favour of gay marriage
So far 233 MPs have come out in favour of gay marriage (Getty Images)

I remember the exact moment I chose to be gay. I was sitting at home contemplating my predictable life of automatic acceptance and uncomplicated social assimilation and procreation and I thought, ‘How dull.’ I whipped out my Manchester United biro from my Pamela Anderson pencil case and started brainstorming ways to inject some adversity into my future.

I thought about tattooing my face with satanic imagery or becoming a single mother on a forgotten council estate but I just didn’t have the qualifications. Clearly, I had the wrong approach! So I started sketching out a list of my tastes, traits and talents. Maybe that might point me in the right direction? I enjoyed the arts. I liked dressing up. I got erections when I thought about naked men. By cross-referencing these details with a number of different lifestyle choices, I came up with two options. I could either be a gay man or a Catholic priest. It was a tricky decision but in the end, I settled for option 1.

I admit it was tough becoming gay at first. I had to stop playing football with my mates and I wasn’t allowed to walk normally any more. It took quite a while for me to get the mince right and it took months of studying Mr Humphries from Are You Being Served before I perfected the necessary lispy voice and drag-act mannerisms. I was only 13 so my moustache was wispy at best and my teachers told me that studded leather chaps and roller skates were not in keeping with school uniform. Besides, they clashed with my tie.

Yes, deciding to be gay was the toughest thing I’ve ever had to do. But I knew it would be worth it! I salivated at the thought of spending years wondering whether or not my friends and family would accept me. I shivered with excitement at the thought of fighting gangs of baying drunken lads outside gay pubs. And most of all, I couldn’t wait to spend my days annoying right-thinking people by demanding equality, in spite of my own selfish decision to be a homo.

They’re right though, those ageing protectors of good-old British bigotry. If I wanted to have a proper marriage, I shouldn’t have chosen to be gay should I? Well bugger you because I did choose to be gay and the EU says I’m allowed to choose to be gay and I’ll tell you why I chose to be gay: I just love a challenge! And now we, the men and women who chose to be queer, are about to have our cake and rim it!

It looks as though we will soon be able to get hitched just like sensible people, in spite of the good work by the Coalition For Marriage. Our comrades in Westminster look set to vote in favour of gay marriage in a matter of weeks. I have already booked the church, just to annoy the vicar. What? I wouldn’t be allowed to get married in a church under the current proposals? That’s a pity because I could think of nowhere better to express my gay love than in the house of God surrounded by drab prayer cushions. Damn it. I would have so loved an opportunity to flaunt my reckless life choice in the faces of the decent.

Ah well, it matters not. Soon, we will be able to crawl inside the precious apple of matrimony like maggot imposters, hungering for the sweet, nutritious flesh of traditional morality which we shall then poo out in the form of divorce settlements and contested custody of gender-confused children and miniature house pigs.

We are within sodomy distance of our ultimate goal. Within months our recruitment of new gay teenagers will be made easier. We will have adverts on television like the RAF! ‘Boys and girls!’ It will declare. ‘Do as I did. Reject the easy route. Throw caution to the wind. Risk being ostracised and ridiculed. Make it hideously complicated and expensive to have a family. Invite persecution into your life. Boys forget about boobs they’re rubbish. Girls, look at boobs they’re lovely. Choose strife, Choose an adopted family, Choose a fucking big television to watch musicals on, choose your future, choose to be gay…Go on! It’ll really annoy everyone!’

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in