The present is a gift, that’s what we say, but it’s a gift we return before opening on a daily basis.
The present is called the present because it presents us with a chance, every day, to make positive change.
To take steps facing a better direction.
The opportunity every day to do right, to put down bigotry, racism and fear, is the most powerful presence there is.
That’s how we are here.
Yet the few who lead us resist the evolution of society, whenever the evolution of the masses disagrees with the fear inside them.
Oppression occurs on a regular basis; every day leaders all over the world choose the option which makes the least sense, at least when looking through the filter of common respect.
They open a dusty book, titled “Don’t Think for Yourself, Copy the Past.”
They read the words inside, heads nodding, and wear the chapters like headphones to block out the cries of what do we need to do to be heard?
They wish they could make sense, but they’re really sorry, they have to copy and paste the mistakes of the people who came before them.
Now tell me, how is that leading?
The way things should be done is now a blind response to justify what we are doing, and who we have become.
Our leaders move around, avoid eye contact, answer direct questions without their own opinion, because that would be madness, and respond by saying they have a bigger picture they have to consider.
What with them being leaders.
A history to respect, even if that means bringing the worst of us up repeatedly; still thinking you can only make an omelet by cracking a few eggs, never stopping to look around at the rest of the menu.
The big picture is a convenient excuse for people to do what they want; because the big picture is so big nobody can find the edges to bring it down from the wall to study it properly.
The big picture is used as justification to make broader strokes, and so the individual, no matter where they are, stare on baffled by leaders who grow ever more distant.
If we fixed the smaller pictures, the parts we can see, then the bigger picture would take care of itself.
Power is kept by leaders who resist practicing the art of taking complex thoughts and thinking them small for everyone else, so we can all understand them.
Which brings me to gay marriage, which isn’t about being gay at all; but the right to take back the right from others, who believe they have a right to say they cannot.
I’m not sure the debate is even about marriage, because marriage means something different in the eyes of each of our hearts.
This is about love; at least I thought that’s why people marry, but maybe love beats smaller in the hearts of the rich.
When a smaller group of people unaffected by the issues directly, believe they have a right to dictate to the masses what they can or can’t do with their lives, then we are stepping on territory nobody likes.
Men who have never been on the outside looking in, who have never had to fight for acceptance, who are privately educated and speak with accents we are told indicate intelligence; who think they understand justice, but haven’t felt the frustration of having it used against them.
These men, born free, are walking around telling others they were born differently.
These men believe the gold band around their finger, telling the stranger in the coffee shop their hearts belong to another, is a freedom of expression they have the right to, because they were born in a time the law happens to suit them.
What? Excuse me good Sir, but kindly fuck off.
Did you really get into politics to serve only yourself?
What happened to the bigger picture, the excuse you used when trying to shut down parts of the NHS? Suddenly the bigger picture is not as important as the mandate, or the one line in an old book.
No wonder we are all so confused.
I watched a Sky News reporter ask a conservative politician why he handed a letter to no10 Downing Street, petitioning against gay marriage.
The old Tory politician simmered with rage; the kind of rage only people who think the world is against them can feel.
The kind of rage that deep down, is directed at himself, at his anger for becoming old, and no longer relevant.
At his exposure on national television, at having to explain himself to someone at all, when back at home what he says goes.
Who is this reporter? I bet he never served in the army.
Who is he to question me? I’ve paid more in tax already than he’ll pay in his entire life.
Doesn’t he get it? I’VE BOUGHT THE RIGHT TO GET MY WAY.
Oh dear. Welcome to life outside Parliament.
He has a free bus pass, but only travels by chauffer driven car.
His tinted windows stop people seeing in, and him seeing out.
He answered no mandate, and I chuckled, because he sounded like a caveman saying “No Man Date.”
Ug.
The reporter was too kind, and didn’t ask him directly, what he would do if his son bought his boyfriend home, and announced he was gay.
The Tory would have ended the interview and walked away, mumbling to himself about the state of society today.
Forget the church, and our insistence on hiding bigotry behind history.
Forget the mandate, and inferior arguments avoiding the fear inside brains.
Marriage should not be a weapon at the table of the already married; it should not be ours to vote for or against.
Imagine not being able to get down on one knee, and live the fairytale for a moment at least.
A crying shame, and a reminder of how far we haven’t come as a race, that we are even having the debate.
We are talking about refusing people a way to express love.
We can even fight over this?
Ignorance is weakest when heard by the masses, and unfortunately for the Tory party, their houses still look good, but the general public are fast learning the wood beneath is rotten.
Perhaps people should stop getting married, after all, getting married when some people can’t, is starting to feel like paying money to travel by bus back in the time when black people were told they had to sit at the back.
The present is a gift, that’s what we say.
Yet some people hold all the presents; the same kids who thought they were special after rigged pass the parcel games.
Tory politicians have the chance to pass on the gift of the freedom of marriage; and if they don’t, and they fail, then how can the present be a gift, an act of giving, when the only example we have is our leaders taking?
