Reprise: A 13 year old writes about same sex marriage. MSPs please take note. #itstime #equalmarriage

This is a re-run of a post from May which I published around the time of the Westminster Same Sex Marriage Bill debate. As Holyrood prepares to vote on its own bill tomorrow, I thought it would be worth putting out there again. I'm going to send it to my MSPs and ask them to vote in favour of the Bill tomorrow. 

I had a bit of a proud Mummy moment last night when I discovered that at the time, an RE teacher had republished it, saying it was a very good read. 

Unfortunately, and to her great disappointment, Anna won't be with me at Holyrood tomorrow. That inconvenient school thing kind of gets in the way, but she'll be with us in spirit. 
Anyway, here it is as I wrote it then with some typos cleaned up:

Yesterday Anna told me she'd received full marks for a school essay on same sex marriage. She had been told to write a persuasive essay on any subject of her choice, so she wrote about something she feels really strongly about. With her permission, I'm publishing it below. It would be nice if MPs read it. She is not always tactful, and she challenges deeply held beliefs - but she's pretty perceptive and shows off both compassion and a passionate sense of justice. If you read no further, at least read her conclusion:

A place where same gender couples are treated as legally equal to heterosexuals is a place one step closer to destroying homophobia before it destroys many more lives.

Here's the whole thing:

Marriage can be an important milestone in a person's life, so naturally unmarried people of all ages fantasise about their own wedding - them and their beloved, the perfect bride and groom, committing to each other. Their parents crying through the ceremony, so proud of their baby. No fear of being disowned, nobody to call their relationship "unnatural", "illegitimate" or even morally wrong.

In 2015, same sex marriage is set to be introduced in Scotland, giving any two individuals, regardless of gender the right to get officially married instead of the "separate but equal" option of civil partnership. While this idea has rounded up a lot of support, those who disagree with it are perhaps the most vocal.

The number one reason for an individual to hold "traditional" (read: homophobic) marriage values is that their religion forbids it. The the infamous Leviticus 18:22 that may homophobic Christians love to call on. "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind. It is an abomination." Upon hearing these words, every rational human being should be able to constantly pick out the holes in this flawed and overused quote. The first being that the Bible is a very old book that was not originally written in English and this particular verse can be translated in several different ways, eg elderly men not lying with young boys. The second is that some of the laws of the Old Testament are invalid. The same people who condemn homosexuality are rarely seen forcing victims of rape to marry their rapists (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) or killing those who work on Sundays (Exodus 35:2). While the Bible can provide solace and teach some wonderful lessons, some early books are not to be taken word for word.

However the most important reason religious arguments fall apart in this case is this: In the UK, we are not a theocracy. While everyone has the right to use their religious beliefs to govern their own life, it is not fair to use your religion to restrict someone else. It is not an exercise of religious freedom to try and prevent marriage equality. If you disapprove of same gender marriages, the noble thing to do would be to let those involved in such marriages live their lives in peace. Your homophobia cannot be justified by religion, your bigotry is no less awful with a quote from a holy book.

Unfortunately, religious reasons are just a small section of the motivation behind people's closed-mindedness. One of the other frequently used arguments is perhaps even more preposterous, even more illogical, and it is this: most couples of the same gender cannot have children. 

While this can tie in with religious arguments "Go forth and multiply, Genesis 9:7) it is often just used on its own. It is difficult to see why this argument is so often used without a religious statement when  a simple look at some statistics render it entirely invalid: over 900 million people in the world are starving. There are over 15,000 children in care in Scotland alone. In a world with so many people and not enough resources, or rather not enough co-operation from wealthy countries to share said resources), surely having a child is not the sole reason a marriage is formed - and f people who cannot have biological children wish to adopt, they are helping an already existent life instead of creating a new one.

Discussing whether a couple can have children or not in relation to marriage equality makes even less sense when you consider the real facts. A menopausal woman or infertile person can still get married, the possibility of a child is never picked on in these cases. Besides, many couples marry and do not desire children, whereas many children re born to unmarried parents, proving that marriage and reproduction are by no means mutually inclusive.

This argument falls apart again when you realise that just because the two people of the same gender cannot get married to each other, they are not immediately going to leave each other to enter a heterosexual relationship and have children. The two people will stay together anyway so allowing them to marry will not prevent the births of any children.

Many will say that as civil partnership exists as a near identical alternative for couples of the same gender, granting them the right to marry is not necessary. While it is true that the same benefits are granted to couples in a civil partnership, marriage holds certain emotional and cultural significance and connotations. Young children dream of one day getting married, not getting "civilly partnered". 

Another reason it is harmful to separate them into two different institutions is that many people will try to delegitimise a civil partnership by saying it is not a true marriage and does not count. This could be very hurtful to the civilly partnered couple and would give people more reason to say bigoted things about how same gender couples cannot truly get married and therefore their relationships do not count.

In any case, the concept of "separate but equal" has proven itself to be a flawed argument many times throughout history. Separate does not mean equal. Calling it equal is something only the accepted, privileged people can say safely, while the other group feels inadequate, like their "equal" separate thing is a rip-off of the original.

There is one argument in particular that does not even try to hide its utter and blatant homophobia and the people who use it do not seem to realise how harmful the thing they are saying is. I am of course referring to the argument that marriage equality would "promote the homosexual lifestyle" and make people accept same gender couples as normal. This argument is often used by closed minded people who cannot grasp that how people are able to express their relationships does not revolve around one individual's personal views.

This argument, along with "gay people are disgusting and unnatural" has no basis. All these arguments can be easily exposed as illogical with no back-up for the argument whatsoever. I could just as easily say that society's unwavering acceptance of marriage between one man and one woman suggests a "heterosexual lifestyle" and give no reasons why this is a bad thing but still oppose such marriages.

Apart from the obvious homophobia, this argument perpetuates that sexual and romantic orientation is a choice and excludes bisexual people in same gender couples.

In conclusion, marriage equality is certainly a good idea because it would improve the general quality of life for same gender couples while those it does not directly affect would suffer no ill effects. It would make the institution of marriage fairer and contribute to reducing prejudice by normalising same gender relationships. The only arguments against this are from self-centred individuals who cannot respect the rights of other people to be treated equally. A place where same gender couples are treated as legally equal to heterosexuals is a place one step closer to destroying homophobia before it destroys many more lives.

My daughter's Twitter "reign of terror"

Weeks ago, I got an email from Premier Inn advertising very, very cheap rooms. I decided to book one for a quick night away during our two week holiday. We're spending the time at home mainly because we wanted to do the Festival seriously.

I hadn't realised when booking that 12th August was the night of the Olympics closing ceremony, but you can't change the date with these cheap offers so, off we went. As it turned out, having some exploring to do the next day made the ending of the Olympics a little more bearable for us.

After a delicious dinner in the Burnbrae pub in Bearsden,we went back to our room and watched the ceremony. We were all laughing and joking about it. I can't quite remember how, but Anna started typing my tweets for me. I then told her she could be my official Twitter correspondent for the evening if she wanted, a challenge she embraced with relish and her customary quirkiness.

She loved it - and I was very grateful to those of my friends who chatted to her through the evening. At one point, I did actually utter the words "tweet what you want". So, for the avoidance of doubt, I want to make it absolutely clear that I can't stand Justin Bieber and I feel many emotions towards David Cameron, but love is most definitely not one of them. Oh, and I never said Twilight was better written than Doctor Who, but I am quite happy to admit to liking it. In fact, I even reviewed it here. It's a bit embarrassing that I said the books were essentially chaste before I'd read Breaking Dawn but never mind.

Oh, and, yes, I did blub my heart out when the Spice Girls came on. I love them and am not embarrassed to admit it. Those tears were nothing to what happened when Gary Barlow came on, though. How incredibly brave for him to tackle a pretty emotional song at the end of the ceremony, just before the flame went out, just 8 days after his little daughter Poppy was stillborn.

We'll never forget the 2012 Olympics, but Anna's tweets gave us an even more special reason to remember the closing ceremony. I had to save her self styled reign of terror for posterity, so here they are in a Storify thingy.

Mr C and Alex Fish give politics and the media a wake up call

Last night I went to see Anna's drama group's annual performance for parents and friends. The play was one the kids had entirely produced themselves. I may be a little biased here, but I honestly think it could hold its own on the Edinburgh Fringe. It combined satire, comedy, drama and tension almost seamlessly as it explored issues around drugs.

The most powerful scene in the whole play was when drug dealers, who'd picked up a vulnerable young girl from the street, threatened her and her family unless she acted as their mule. It as a tense scene, exceptionally well acted by the three girls.

Interspersed with that frightening tale was the backdrop of celebrities and politicians running an anti drugs campaign. The politicians, Mr C and Alex Fish (and I feel I should point out that Mr C is the PM, not his deputy for the avoidance of doubt) were every bit as vacuous and shallow as the celebrities. They were also guilty (in the play) of blatant hypocrisy as well as criminal moves on the dance floor.

I would never expect my daughter to take anything less than a questioning attitude to authority. However, it worries me that a group of the brightest, most talented teenagers have such a cynical view of politicians, portraying them as entirely narcissistic and unpleasant. The last thing you'd ever want is for them to be deferential but the edge to what they'd produced is a cause for concern.

In my experience of almost 30 years in and around politics, I've found that most people in all parties are decent folk who want to change people's lives for the better. There is disagreement in philosophy and approach, but most are in it for the right reasons. The culture and perception, especially in the wake of the expenses scandals, that they are all out for themselves, is false. There are plenty valid reasons to criticise them, from naivety to incompetence to lack of intellectual rigour and also reasons to cut them a bit of slack, too. People make mistakes and learn from them. It's a fact of life. Yet, when a politician does it, even if it's not that serious, it can be terminal. I'm not talking about the obviously self serving mistakes, but instances where they've tried to do their best and it hasn't worked out. The more time spent suggesting solutions and the less pumping vitriol into the atmosphere, the better in my view.

It strikes me that both politicians and the media need to up their game. Where does the perception of self obsession come from? Well, sometimes from the proponents themselves, in the way they conduct themselves. Even those of us in politics watch the circuses that are FMQs and PMQs with an undercurrent of despair. Those pantomimes take up in total half an hour a week, yet the angry exchanges they contain are most likely to be all people see of what goes on in Parliament. Nobody wants to hail people actually getting on and working together and getting the job done.

The media loves to talk about splits and fallings out and politicians kicking lumps out of each other. Working together? Not so much. Hopefully the Leveson Enquiry will open people's eyes to the tactics and lack of ethics in journalistic practice and will make them more aware of the agenda behind the stories in our papers.

Politicians need to take a long, hard look at the public perceptions of them. They may not be true, but they are there and they are influencing people. The bright young people on the stage last night had something to say about the issues of the day. They showed knowledge, creativity and emotional intelligence. They are exactly the sorts of people it would be great to have in politics but they'd probably reject it.

I'm not suggesting that people should go into politics expecting deference, or not to be laughed at. That's never going to happen and nor should it. Surely it's not too much to ask, though, that our politics is conducted in an atmosphere of a little more mutual understanding and empathy. With the European economy on the brink, with the future of Scotland at stake, surely it's not too much to expect quality debate and not mudslinging.

Watch out! There's a teenager about!

Forget all this Jubilee stuff for a moment. For us, today is not about honouring the Queen's 60 years on the throne. We've been doing that all weekend. Instead, it's about Anna's 13th birthday.

I'm really not sure how the time has passed so quickly since this beautiful 9lb 3oz baby with a thick mop of dark hair arrived in our lives.Now, I'm in denial about her possibly being taller than me - seriously, she's not, not yet.

What I have always found, though, is that there are many times when I've felt that she simply could not get any cuter and more fun to be around. And I've been unfailingly wrong. This being a mum business just gets better and better. And though I can't hold her in my arms and spend the day chuckling with her and reading her books and pushing her on swings, I can take her to Cardiff for Doctor Who conventions and have endless conversations over who was the best Doctor and I can have her critique my blog posts. If I can smell out a misplaced apostrophe at 50 paces, she can do it at 25. I can watch her sing in choir concerts, perform on stage, listen as she learns to play her guitar. I can be the butt of her jokes or her co-conspirator. The best thing on the planet is seeing her face light up.

She's a bright, funny, quirky, caring, kind girl and we just love her to bits. Happy Birthday, Anna.

Anna's birthday Day 2 - A Sea of Stars, by Kate Maryon

And so the build up to my baby becoming a teenager continued yesterday. The special event of yesterday wasn't specifically birthday related so I didn't want it to be absorbed into the celebrations, but it's still a good excuse for making the event last as long as possible.

Remember last year when author Keris Stainton set up Authors for Japan, which raised over £13,000 to help those affected by the earthquake there? Well, my contribution went towards this marvellous prize from children's author Kate Maryon.  Not only were their two copies of her first two books, but a character name in the fourth which she was just about to start writing. I thought it would be special for Anna to know that a character in a book had been named after her.

Now, I thought that Kate would just mention this character in passing - that it would be the name of a shopkeeper or a pet hamster or something. Actually, she's done a lot more than that in A Sea of Stars which is published on Thursday. I won't give away too much, but she's given the Anna character a lovely part in the story. Although, obviously, if Anna ever did what her namesake does, she'd be grounded for a very long time. It's great for kids to imagine these things, though.

So, thank you, Kate, for doing my daughter proud, and good luck with A Sea of Stars. Everyone else - if you have a suitably aged child in your lives, buy this book for them. Kate is really good at sensitively capturing the complex emotions of difficult circumstances in children's lives, whether it's unemployment, or a mum going to prison or a dad going to Afghanistan. In A Sea of Stars, it's about adoption and two girls getting used to being sisters. As well as being good stories, her books show children a path through the tough challenges they may be facing themselves, helping them to deal with their own emotions. This is one of the reasons reading is so important because it connects with you in a way that watching something on the television can't.

It was good to see Anna's smiling face when she was given the book yesterday, and to see a huge amount of  it already read on her bedside table this morning.

Anna's birthday Day 1 - Buying a guitar

You think you're all getting a bank holiday on Tuesday for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. My Republican friends can take some comfort from the fact that the day is Anna's birthday and are welcome to celebrate that instead, as we are.

We went today to get her the first of her birthday presents. She's recently started playing the guitar and wants one of her own. It's slightly more complicated because she's left handed so we started looking, at the shop everyone recommended to us, Guitar Guitar in Corstsorphine, Edinburgh. We went in a couple of weeks ago and they said they had nothing in for left handed people so they'd order one for us and promised to phone us back the next week.

They phoned on the Friday to say that they hadn't been able to order anything at present, but they would definitely have something in the next week for us. I told them that I needed it by her birthday. And so....nothing.

I hadn't heard from them so I rang them up yesterday and spoke to a manager who was very apologetic, said they'd lost our details and nothing had been done. And they wouldn't be able to order anything in until next week. He offered to sell me something in the next range up for £200, more than we'd planned on spending. Before we lay out that kind of money, we want to be sure she's going to stick at it. To be fair on her, she usually does, but, still...

I rang round a few music shops in Edinburgh yesterday and had no luck. Then Bob was in his second home, the record shop Underground Solu'shun and they recommended he try Varsity Music on Nicolson Street. We went in there this afternoon and left half an hour later with everything we wanted at approximately half the price we'd expected to pay. The shop itself is the musical equivalent of Mr Olivander's wand shop in Harry Potter. The owners were happy for Anna to try out instruments to find what was right for her. I enjoyed having a look round at the pianos, double basses, ukuleles and the like that were on offer. My sister has been on about learning the ukulele for long enough - now I know where to send her to get one the next time she's down.

The shop owners could not have been more helpful and knowledgeable and I'm glad we found them. 

As I write Anna's in the living room playing. She's only had 3 or 4 lessons so far and I'm quite impressed with the pleasantness of the melody permeating through the house. What I need to do now is find my Grandma's guitar notebook. I know it's around somewhere but I have no idea where. It's a little black and white spotty notebook with  songs she wrote out with the guitar cords as she was teaching herself to play in her 60s. It would be a special thing to hand on to the great granddaughter she never met. I was really close to her, as I've written on here before and I think they would have got on so well. She was a stalwart of the Florians drama group in Inverness and Anna could have learnt so much from her.

I happened to comment that we were going to have about 5 days of birthday celebrations for Anna this year - and she said that she really felt that there should be 13 days, to reflect her age and go one better than the 12 days of Christmas. She'll be lucky.....

Christmas chez Caron

I'm feeling mellow from a very quiet but lovely day yesterday. The house is full of that glorious aroma of the turkey stock being made and my mouth is watering at the anticipation of a hearty plate of broth at lunchtime.

I've been a bit knackered since our exertions in Liverpool so after 3 hours in the shops on Christmas Eve, I wondered how on earth I'd manage to get all I needed done by the end of the day. The good news is that barring the writing of a few cards (sorry, friends, I do love you, really) and a lot of tidying, I pretty much made it. By the time the Outnumbered Christmas Special came on, the mince pies and stuffing  were both made and we were pretty much organised.

We woke up late even for us on Christmas morning. I rose at 9, two hours later than usual, to get intimate with the poultry. As if by magic, as the last streaky bacon rasher went across its breast, Bob and Anna awoke. That's pretty impressive, you have to admit.

Anna was delighted with the contents of her stocking which included some very funny t-shirts. I'm not sure Santa was thinking straight when he gave her stuff with small writing across her chest, mind you, even if they were genius. The traditional satsumas were replaced this year by grapefruit., which she really enjoys.

Downstairs, the old man had left pretty much exactly what she wanted. She hadn't given us much of a clue as to what she'd asked him for this year, but we were glad that her wishes were fulfilled. We've finally been dragged into the 21st century with an xBox. That's quite convenient because in the Summer she won a Harry Potter xBox game at the Dare Protoplay event. I am very proud to have a daughter who hasn't found it hard to wait 4 months for the console to play it on. In fact, even yesterday, she was much more interested in getting stuck into her stash of John Green books.

The one remarkable thing is that for the first time ever, no music changed hands in our house. We usually have loads of new music to listen to, but absolutely nothing this year. However, I did download the Military Wives Choir song later in the day.

I love my family for many and varied reasons, but yesterday it was for the general excellence of the presents they gave us. Harry Potter Cluedo from my sister, a very funny book of politically correct bedtime stories from my niece and a thing that you can programme to defrost the car for you in the morning from my parents. If there's anything I can't stand, it's an iced up car so I'm looking particularly forward to using that one.

After the present opening, I got on with making the dinner. We tend to have one massive course at around 3pm and then let it settle for several hours before we have our pudding. I used to make absolutely everything from scratch but have not been quite so clever the last few years. Glandular Fever and two horrendously snowy Winters put paid to that a bit but this year was quite a good balance between home made and shop bought.  Here is a list of everything we had:

Turkey (Tesco finest free range effort, bought for 2/3 of its original price) cooked the Delia Smith way;

Gravy (this is immodest, I know, but it was pretty awesome. I have never made it with giblet stock before, but that's definitely the way to go.

Grandma's stuffing - very simple, sausagemeat, loads of onion and 5 teaspoons of English mustard;

Honey, chestnut and rosemary stuffing ball things from Sainsbury's. A tad over seasoned, but very good.

Marks and Spencer beef dripping roast potatoes - yes, I know, home made are probably better but not that much and we all love them.

Marks and Spencer maple, honey and mustard roast parsnips - they do all the chopping for you, why not?

Sainsbury's red cabbage with apple

Marks and Spencer Cranberry and Port Sauce. A mistake - Delia's Cranberry and Orange is a zillion miles better.

Steamed brocoli and brussels sprouts;

Mashed turnip ( some of the cooking water went in the gravy also);

Mashed Potato;

Delia's bread sauce.

Sainsbury's sausage and bacon garnishes. Seriously, why would you waste time wrapping a chipolata in bacon when someone has done it for you?

Even though I say it myself, it all combined well to make it one of my best ever efforts in 25 years of cooking Christmas Dinners. It's a meal I really enjoy preparing.

We didn't have our pudding until almost 10 pm. I made Eton Mess for Anna. Why on earth I felt I had to whip the cream by hand when we have a perfectly good mixer, I don't really understand, but never mind. We had a Sainsbury's Christmas pudding with Brandy Cream. It wasn't the best, to be honest. Maybe 2012 will be the year when I finally make my own.  I'd found a 7 year old Sauternes dessert wine in the cupboard the other day and we wondered if it would be ok to drink. Sadly, it wasn't, but we had to try.

Even though it's delicious on the day, for me the real joy of a turkey roast is leftovers. Cold stuffing and bread sauce on sandwiches, a healthy broth that will fight off anything for Boxing Day lunch, and the whole thing again for dinner.

We passed the rest of our day with books and less television than usual. The Doctor Who Christmas special was excellent bar one appalling moment. Strictly wasn't quite so delightful. I couldn't believe the marks that were being given for what was essentially a week one show - did the producers think we were all too drunk to care. However, the re-appearance of Russell Grant and seeing Ian Waite back as a competitor made up for any of these shortcomings.

I had been a little sceptical about the re-appearance of Absolutely Fabulous after so long. Could it really be as good? Actually, it could. It was absolutely hilarious, complete with a typically brilliant Jennifer Saunders dream sequence which was not the most unrealistic part of the show. The efficient and helpful service by a certain Government department was way more incredible. Although, to be fair, that one, in my experience, was always much better than the rest.

And so, after despairing at Steve McDonald's stupidity in Corrie, it was time for bed where I read all about the co-dependent Goats Gruff and Red Riding Hood setting up effectively a hippy commune with her Grandma and the wolf before falling into a very chilled out sleep.