I don’t feel at all gay about our marriage!

Honesty is best policy and particularly so in personal relationships.

By Stanley Collymore

 

Please tell me it isn’t true; that you didn’t just marry me simply

to deflect attention attendant with the likely possibility of

hostile opprobrium from some within our population

away from you, bearing in mind the prominent

political office which you hold and attach so much importance

to; because as I’ve only rather belatedly found out myself

in the most distressing, humiliating and untoward of

circumstances any loving and faithful wife could

possibly have experienced and what is now

so patently obvious to me, is that you

are undeniably, and have for some

considerable time now, been

a closet homosexual.

 

Furthermore, and what I find particularly hurtful and deeply

insulting about all this is that you didn’t even have the

guts or the decency to honestly tell me the truth

about yourself, leaving me instead and purely

by chance, because I accidentally discovered you in

bed and sexually involved with another man, to

cruelly find out after the manner in which you so

romantically and persuasively pursued me,

pretentiously carried on doing so with your wooing,

and quite evidently it now appears duplicitously

secured as well a marriage between us into

the bargain, that your sexual proclivities

are by no means solely heterosexual

nor are you the man whom you

purport to be and who got

me to marry you.

 

You of all people who in both your public discourses

and private life are always going on about openness

and how people, especially those in public life,

should always unswervingly demonstrate

the courage of their own convictions regardless

of the consequences they might face, in the same way

that you waste neither time, effort nor opportunity

to patronizingly dismiss and even conceitedly

vilify those whom you personally disdain

as the complete antithesis not only of

everything that’s decent and morally

upstanding, but also who you

bigotedly see, virulently

condemn and unforgivingly portray

as the villainous authors of those

selfsame evils that you’re all

so eagerly inclined and

robustly prepared

to lambasting

them for.

 

Now I know why it is, even in the distinct absence of any

pressing financial impetus for me to do so, that you’re

so keen I should carry on working as before and

not abort a promising professional career

by subsuming it, you opined, into the

restrictive clutches of conventional domesticity

as you described it; an observation however, which in

the light of recent revelations about you has absolutely

nothing to do with genuine female empowerment on

my part through my staying a productive member

of our country’s workforce; but everything, it

seems, quite skilfully designed by virtue

of your cynical manipulation of me to

postpone indefinitely and eventually

kill off, as well, all prospects of

my ever being a mother, and

in doing so intentionally

avert your very worst

nightmare of you

becoming a

father.

 

You sense these things don’t you, even if you don’t want

to believe them. But even so what really astounds me,

and something I find very hard to forgive, is the

profound level of deceitfulness you stooped

to and that you premeditatedly engaged in as regards

our personal relationship; and what’s more doing

so in a country where homosexuality in all its lawfully

indulged in and consensual guises is perfectly legal,

has the same blanket immunity from prosecution and

is equally free of official societal persecution that

lesbianism luckily has always enjoyed, but

more into the bargain has ironically become

so chic, particularly in upper class

circles, that if some of its most vocal aficionadas

and avid supporters were to have their way it

would undeniably be made compulsory;

so there was really no need for you to

have embarked on this elaborate

subterfuge of yours which

you subjected me to.

 

Let me make it abundantly clear; I’m not criticizing you

because you’re a homosexual as I’m certainly not a

homophobe in any way, shape or form since my

simple and straightforward philosophy is one

of live and let live, and along with that the

firmly subscribed to dictum of each to their own where

sexual matters are concerned. But I also do fervently

believe, and you can call me old fashioned if you

like, in honesty, frankness and trustworthiness

in personal relationships and especially those

involving married couples; and you, I’m afraid,

have markedly failed in our own relationship to

deliver on any of these values. And as such

there can no longer from my point of

view be any future together for you

and me, for to continue with this

sickening farce as if nothing

had happened would quite

candidly be a dreadful,

self-inflicted and

most unseemly

travesty!

 

© Stanley V. Collymore

3 December 2013.

 

 

Commentary:

In 2013 the government of the Russian Federation sensibly and quite correctly in my view passed a law with the specifically intended purpose, it must be stressed, of dissuading and ultimately prohibiting anyone within its territory from encouraging or engaging in the proselytization of that country’s minors principally promoted and largely instigated by western external forces meddling in Russia’s domestic affairs under the misguided and rather disingenuous pretext of supposedly educating these youngsters about the positive aspects of homosexuality.

 

Unsurprisingly even before this legislative ruling was given assent in the Duma and signed into law by President Putin all hell broke loose in the west with slick choreographed campaigns of fake outrage against Russia’s decision staged by the west’s media, its chattering classes, pseudo homosexual activists and vested interests with their personal axes to grind, and of course fiercely ambitious and self-serving MPs who fully cognisant of the importance of the so-called pink vote and quite determined at all costs to cash in on it, predictably and most eagerly jumped on the bandwagon juggernaut promptly seized, rolled out and liberally utilized by those taking to ridiculing and vilifying Russia and particularly its President as they accumulatively levelled all sorts of pernicious accusations at them, including the perennial old chestnut of human rights violations.

 

However, Russia’s legislative and executive branches of government weren’t the only ones in the line of fire of this abusive western condemnation, for when Elena Isinbaeva, Russia’s renowned female Olympic and current (2013) world record holder in the pole vault, was asked what she thought of the law that was enacted and honestly replied that she supported her country’s democratic right to approve what laws it saw fit in the best interests of its citizens in the same way that western countries do, she too was slated mercilessly with the additional affront heaped on her in the way of deafening calls made from influential groups in the west demanding she should be summarily ostracised and speedily stripped of her commercial endorsements; the same groups among others that were also insisting that the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi to be hosted by Russia should themselves be boycotted.

 

In response to the unfair treatment meted out to Elena Isinbaeva and the wider issue of this anti-proselytizing of homosexuality law now on the Russian statute books and aimed at the protection of Russian minors I wrote an article entitled: “Elena Isinbaeva and the west’s self-righteous penchant for creating bogus enemies” which is online and can also be found on my personal website http://www.politicoacademic.blogspot.com. That article generated a great deal of interest and positive feedback globally and is primarily why this poem is written and has absolutely nothing to do with ensuing events either in Britain or elsewhere pertaining to former closet homosexuals, regardless of whether they be obscure or well-known individuals, that for whatever reason, be it egotism or self-guilt, have belatedly chosen to publicly declare to all and sundry that they’re homosexual.

 

Notwithstanding that I will nevertheless say this, because it’s something that I intrinsically believe in; namely that one’s sexuality and whomsoever they practise it with, or not at all, within the legal framework of their country’s instituted laws is, in my opinion, strictly a private matter that should be treated and respected as such and not used as an issue for public grandstanding, the garnering of attention seeking plaudits or, for that matter, ostentatious guilt-ridden flagellantism.

 

Meanwhile, the pungent smell of hypocrisy by the west and most notably the Anglophile countries therein is invasive, debilitating and widespread and raises the pertinent question as to why with its own intractable problems in this regard the west nevertheless readily sallies forth in its often caustic condemnation of others on a matter it is yet to demonstrably tackle and resolve. Not for nothing is the dictum “don’t ask; don’t tell so pervasive throughout all branches of the US military for example, where homosexuality to put it mildly is at best a taboo subject and treated as such. And equally it would be a brave but foolish individual who having decided to run for high political or some other prominent public office in the United States or have his or her name put forward for an equivalent position in the corporate world of big business to then openly declare he or she was a practising homosexual and seriously expect to succeed in that endeavour.

 

And on our side of the Atlantic Britain and the rest of the EU aren’t immune from this stance on homosexuality or the contagion of homophobia either, no matter how vaingloriously the powers that be who influence policy decisions or run these countries pretend otherwise; for in reality it’s all a deliberate and carefully fabricated smoke screen from behind which much is extravagantly promised but very little is actually delivered.

 

Here’s an indication of what I mean. The marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton enthused most of the British public, the Commonwealth, and significant numbers of other people across the globe and markedly pushed the approval rating of the British Monarchy way of the Richter scale of transcendent popularity. But wilfully playing Devil’s advocate here but in no way impugning or seeking to do so the sexuality of Prince William, which I freely confess I know absolutely nothing about and frankly care even less as it’s none of my business, just suppose that instead of the lovely Kate Middleton, elevated after her marriage to the status of Duchess of Cambridge and made a prominent member of the British Royal Family, it was a bloke, a Kenny Middleton for argument sake, that Prince William had wed and thereafter had proudly walked down the aisle of one of our historical and iconic English cathedrals with on his arm.

 

Assuming, that is, that this hypothetical homosexual relationship had been allowed to get this far with Buckingham Palace and the Con-Dem coalition regime headed by Prime Minister David Cameron having debatably given their blessing to and approval for it. What in the aforesaid circumstances do you think the gut instinct reactions of Britons generally across our green and pleasant land as well as attitudes in the Commonwealth, and especially those countries where Her Majesty the Queen is still head of state, and where their leaders have only belatedly come around after much intransigent heart searching and heated discussions to the logical idea in my view that royal princes in line to the British throne should no longer have automatic preference to accession over their older female siblings and counterparts; the world at large; and you yourself would be?

 

The question put here is largely rhetorical in nature as I’m positive we all know the answer to it; which begs the other obvious question that the first one naturally now triggers. If at best one can expect only ambivalence and at its worst outright antipathy and even hatred towards an open and honest homosexual relationship of this kind that evidently would nevertheless rock the core values as perceived and generally adhered to by the vast majority of those who constitute the British nation, something that the powers that be within our country recognize and accept, why then do these same people conceitedly think that they have an inalienable right to lecture and even dictate to others, in what are indisputably sovereign states, how they should approach and eventually deal with the matter of homosexuality within their own countries?

 

The British attitude to homosexuality reminds me very much of that which bedevils racism in our country, in as much that it’s extremely difficult to find anyone who will willingly own up to their concealed prejudices regarding either or both of these issues with respondents invariably and disingenuously remarking in the majority of cases in which they’re questioned about either of them that on reaching the age of majority and thus effectively becoming an adult as it were, those who’ve successfully managed to make this transition from childhood and adolescence should be free, within the realms of the law, accepted ethical boundaries, and without undue interference in or coercion from anyone, to make what decisions they consider are appropriate for themselves together with the inalienable right to live their own life as they please and with whomsoever they mutually choose to.

 

Reality though is quite different and often as several mixed race couples and potential ones have painfully and embarrassingly discovered to their dismay and chagrin a bridge too far, having had their relationships firmly rebuffed and cruelly so even by so-called liberal white Caucasian parents, other family members, friends and most incredibly neighbours and work colleagues when one of those personally involved in a mixed race relationship is himself or herself white Caucasian as well or even British Asian.

 

And ironically as it seems with those opponents of familial mixed raced unions involving one of their own and who would be the first to declare that they weren’t racist even stating that they fully subscribed to the concept of everyone being treated equally and fairly in all matters but somehow not when that “everyone”, no matter how exemplary and worthy as a human being that individual is, he or she in relation to their own family or friendship circles is distinctly of a different race and skin colour.

 

Two specific criteria that they obviously deem are alright where other people are concerned but clearly don’t fit into these antagonists1 personal scheme of things; and when questioned or even challenged about their supposed tolerant and liberal credentials that they brazenly flaunt and remarkably don’t appear in the aforesaid circumstances to mind doing so or see any contradiction in what they doing, their kneejerk response is always one along these lines, that while they will arguably concede that some mixed race marriages or relationships might be suitable and appropriate for others, they nevertheless feel and are completely convinced, without ever satisfactorily or convincingly explaining why, that a mixed race union between their much-loved son, daughter, other relative or friend and some one from a different race or ethic background would be most inappropriate. The same cynical obfuscation together with a baffling but astonishing hypocrisy that’s replete in attitudes to homosexuality, I’m afraid.

 

In conclusion wilful deception in any relationship that is mutually understood to be a meaningful one by those who freely embarked on it is simply abhorrent, a situation to be roundly deplored, and a personal betrayal of whoever is on the receiving end of it. And when unknowingly to the person affected the perpetrator wittingly and for purely self-serving reasons traduces the said relationship to nothing more than a debasing farce, such actions, unpardonable, loathsome and insupportable in themselves, should on their discovery by the abused person swiftly, forthrightly and fearlessly be condemned and instantaneously walked away from. To refrain from doing so would, I fear, be to cowardly collude in negating one’s self worth and significantly constitute a violation of and a gross insult to that person’s personal integrity as a worthy human being.