A NYT editorial has slammed Goldman Sachs for its role in the financial crisis, Ten must work out what to do with Australian Idol in 2010, how the media downturn will affect higher education, newsreaders get emo, and more.
Memo to the British Press: "husband" isn’t a dirty word
|
Boy band singer Stephen Gately of Boyzone, died on the weekend. Apparently he choked on his own vomit after a night out partying. Which may seem like a fairly standard celebrity death that the tabloid media would be all over, and you’d be right. There’s just one interesting sidenote: Gately was gay and had been married to Andy Cowles since 2006. You might have missed this, since Cowles is rarely referred to as his husband. “Gately had been on holiday with his long-term partner Andy Cowles when he died on Saturday,” reported news.com.au. Most news.com.au articles didn’t even refer to the fact that they were married. The Mirror (UK) referred to Cowles as Gately’s ‘partner’, and made no mention of them being married but made sure to note that Gately had been partying at “Palma’s biggest gay nightclub”. Some seemed unsure of their relationship status, like The Times, who in one article refers to Cowles as his ‘partner’ but in another acknowledges their marriage and used, *gasp*, the h-word:
They weren’t alone with the husband usage, with the Daily Mail also calling Cowles his ‘husband’, which seemed to rile many of the commenters on the site. Further confusion over at The Telegraph, where Cowles was either his ‘civil partner’ or his ‘long-term partner’. But the classiest bit was the Telegraph’s obituary, where there is several juicy paragraphs about Gately’s messy gay love life, including:
A ”commitment ceremony”? But it’s “companion” that’s really insulting. Not that Gately is alone with much of the media’s homophobia and confusion over how to label gay relationships. Just last week, the ex-husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas was found hanged:
A lover, a “husband”, a boyfriend, a companion, a partner, a civil partner? The language involving same-sex relationships is a political minefield. Is it because technically ‘gay marriage’ in the UK isn’t real marriage but a civil partnership? The difference being that a partnership is entered into as a contract when papers are signed and no formal ‘vows’ need to be said. Plus, ‘marriage’, for better or worse, has possible religious connotations. Potato, potaato. Apparently so that gay marriage legislation could be passed with little hassle, the term civil partnerships was used. But, according to the BBC, a civil partnership “is to all intents and purposes a right of marriage for gay and lesbian couples.” So what language should the media use when dealing with what is essentially gay marriage? Sharon Dane, deputy national convener of Australian Marriage Equality says it’s up to the individual to decide the language of their relationship. ”It’s really a personal thing, regardless of personal sexual orientation. Many civil partnerships prefer to use ‘husband and wife’. It’s a social label, there aren’t legal connotations with the terms. People who are seeking marriage equality often use husband and wife because of that connection with marriage.” What terms should the media use if they aren’t familiar with the personal preference of the couple? “At the very least ‘partner’ or ‘spouse’” says Dane. Just in case you were wondering, Gately has quite publicly used the word husband. “I’m a fabulous husband [laughs]! I love to cook and clean - I’m a bit of a house husband actually!” he proclaimed in an interview with Star magazine in 2007. Gately’s sexuality may seem irrelevant when discussing his death, but it was his sexuality that brought him much of his fame. He was the first openly gay man in a choreographed dancing, matching suits and swelling ballads boy band. Boyzone were the first boy band to make a video clip that included a same sex love interest. He “was a pioneer in the pop world” says The Guardian and “a gay rights hero” says The Times. It’d just be nice if they could figure out how to label his personal relationships. |
|
|
22 Comments
Finding the use of the word ‘companion’ to be insulting … I ‘d ask how this innocuous word could possibly be considered so.
Why is there such a struggle? Marriage has a meaning that does not fir this relationship - marriage is only possible between a man and a woman. Mr Gately did not have such a relationship.
“There’s just one interesting sidenote: Gately was gay and had been married to Andy Cowles since 2006. You might have missed this, since Cowles is rarely referred to as his husband. - So what?
That appears to be standard in heterosexual unions as well as far as the media is concerned.
It is almost standard practice to refer to the wife/husband as her/his partner whether or not the couple are married. I suppose it’s the result of uncertainty as to whether the union is de facto, or because the wife has chosen to retain her birth name.
Just to compare recent other (heterosexual) celebrity deaths:
“Michael Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe won’t attend memorial service” - http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25744928-601,00.html
Patrick Swayze “died at the ranch in California where he bred horses with his wife of 33 years” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/6193195/Patrick-Swayze-the-man-who-inspired-a-generation-of-women-to-dance-has-died.html
Even Farrah Fawcett, who never married her partner Ryan O’Neal (he is usually referred to as ‘long term partner’ or ‘long term companion’: “Farrah Fawcett with husband Ryan O’Neal” - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1178342/Farrah-Fawcetts-cancer-treatment-ended — shes-bed-ridden-lost-famous-hair-says-Ryan-ONeal.html
Leaving aside your selective references, regarding celebrity deaths,Amber these no way repudiate my point that the word partner is almost standard usage when referring to couples in any sort of union these days. Or maybe I just read different papers to you.
Wow, I thought Crikey readers would appreciate this story a little more than it appears they have.
Meski, ‘companion’ is your dog or your best mate, not your spouse. To use the word ‘companion’ is to leave out the intimacy of a spousal relationship and was used a lot in the days before people were allowed to live in a publicly gay relationship. My great-uncle was survived by his ‘companion’ of 40 years, when in reality they were as much husbands as any straight couple. I feel it belittles who they were to each other.
Martin, you’ve said this before, and I have no idea on what you can base this statement other than religious belief. Since you can’t argue with what someone believes, no matter how fantastic, I won’t bother.
Stephen, what you’ve said just isn’t true. Where a straight couple are married, or have referred to themselves as married publicly, the media have no hesitation in using ‘wife’ and ‘husband’, as Amber’s post shows. Even the use of ‘defacto husband’ etc is used. I can’t recall ever seeing a same sex partner referred to as a wife or husband in any media. It’s always ‘partner’.
This might seem like a purely political and possibly trivial issue, but I think this has huge impact on gay couples. To have your relationship constantly reduced to a kind of tolerated friendship, even in death, is appalling. Why can’t people simply accept that those who are different from them are just as capable of feeling the same things, the same depths of emotion, the same connections to someone and affection for a significant other?
Surely, if we can call Michael Jackson and Debbie Rowe’s relationship a marriage, the institution of marriage is nowhere near as sacred as people like Martin make out….
I am sure the three gays (two of them a couple that we don’t see so much because we don’t like one of them) at our dinner table the other night would have joined in saying “BORING” to the gay self-obsession evident in Amber Jamieson’s piece. Even my 99 year old mother gave up bothering about such niceties as Mrs John Smith and never Mrs Jane Smith since she wasn’t divorced and the gay attempt at taking over traditional words inappropriately from the point of view of language and, equally, of sensitivity to those who have enough religion to care about traditional marriage, is overdue for death as boring as its birth.
Nadia, that’s selective quoting of the definition of companion.
A quick lookup of online dicitionaries found me:
1. One who accompanies or is in company with another for a longer or shorter period, either from choice or casually; one who is much in the company of, or is associated with, another or others; an associate; a comrade; a consort; a partner.
Meski, do you seriously expect us to believe that any British or Australian straight couples would describe their partner as companion, associate, comrade or consort But not partner, de facto or wife/husband? Further your definition of companion says “a partner” as in verb not noun. What we want is the same noun as straights. That is equality! That is respect of our biology that we had no real choice in!
Sharon Dane, deputy national convener of Australian Marriage Equality, misses the point entirely in saying “it’s up to the individual to decide the language of their relationship”. But what is our society going to call our relationships by law, in court, in parliament, in the shared social discourse? Clearly it is OFFICIAL that same-sex relationships in Britain do not have equality in naming rights. On this, the core issue, this article falls down badly. Instead we have the grand statement “according to the BBC….” as if it is just the latest fashion we are interested in and they don’t have a conflict of interest in keeping it as controversial as possible.
Ponder this: how mean is a society when they acknowledge the need for equality and recognise same-sex relationships in a way that is essentially legally the same as the traditional but they are still kept separate. It is simply mean spirited homophobia.
It’s beyond me why gay people want to grasp so desperately at the trappings of this clapped-out religious institution including its obsolete rites and terminology. Bring on equivalent legal and social status, but why the contentious hetero remnants? Hetero feminists have long been bent on killing these off, only to watch them now being spookily resurrected in a most unlikely context. Ancient role prejudices are being revisited in this bizarre conservative push by the supposed revolutionaries. Husband? Wife? What on earth is wrong with non-gendered Partner? It’s what many feminists opted for and seems an obvious choice. Gender as traditionally conceptualised is supposedly irrelevant to gays, but husband and wife are complements, and they are male and female. To adopt them both is reactionary; to adopt only one is ridiculous.
Nadia, in relation to my assertion that marriage by its very nature involves a man and a woman you comment:
“Martin, you’ve said this before, and I have no idea on what you can base this statement other than religious belief. Since you can’t argue with what someone believes, no matter how fantastic, I won’t bother.”
Indeed sad that you won’t bother - why are you afraid?
Male+Female=Capable of Reproduction | Male+Male or Female+Female =Sterile (Always!!)
Each homosexual/lesbian relationship by its very nature is intrinsically or essentially sterile - it can never transmit life.
Even a contracepting Male+Female can open windows into generation. Sadly, that is not and can never be the case with suggested alternatives. Male+Female=Marriage | Male+Male and Female+Female= Sterility and therefore Not Marriage.
Best wishes,
M
Martin Shanahan, infertile heterosexual couples “can never transmit life” either without assistance from other persons via adoption, surrogacy, sperm donation and/or reproductive technologies. Homosexual couples can also use these methods to become parents. Your rejection of some couplings on the basis of “essential sterility” is a metaphysical one, and not critical to the reason for being of couples today. The term “sterile” is emotionally loaded with negative connotations that are irrelevant to the creative and challenging endeavour of nurturing and raising children. As a further counter to your notions, any random and transient heterosexual coupling might result in biological reproduction, whereas the creation of a happy, well-adjusted family for the this and the next generation is an achievement and a social contribution that requires talent and dedication. “Essential humanity” is what is required, not “essential fecundity”.
(Edit: Crikey encourages a robust range of views, but this is beyond the pale)
I always though a “companion” was an old lady who held the skein while another old lady wound the wool, while a “partner” is someone you can rely on to play a solid game on the net in tennis.
What really offends me is the couples-basecd tyranny of monogamy involved in this terminology, and in the above discussion.
My husbands and wives agree with me on this point
You’re quite the mathematician, Martin. You can always rely on a gay issue to smoke out the assorted crackpots among crikey subscribers. Yes yes, we heard you. Now back under that rock with you.
How very peculiar Martin. Presumably you are also campaigning to make it a requirement that every heterosexual who intends to marry produce medically documented proof of fertility, and a stat dec attesting to an intention to reproduce? Don’t want to, or can’t, have children? No marriage for you!! (Naturally adoption, step-parenting and artificial insemination are also completely out the question. )
Also, I’m not quite sure how to break this to you, but there are already lesbian mothers and gay fathers out there, in your very suburb, destroying family life as you know it by their very existence. Some of their children quite possibly attend your children’s school. Yes, it’s true! I myself, for example, am not in the least bit heterosexual, and I have actually managed to produce “life”, without resort to heterosexual intercourse and without medical intervention. So your whole gay=sterile link is looking, shall we say, a little dodgy.
Eric, your overreaction to my quotation of a dictionary definition staggers me. And ‘a partner’ as in my original definition can in no way be considered a verb. Quit trying to take a confected high moral ground. I’ve got no objection really to what terminology is used, but I dislike language being battered into what political correctness thinks is right. And whilst on that subject I dislike the word ‘closure’
Clare Ellis:
It’s too much to bare Clare. …i may not agree with what you say but i will defend your right to say it….on the condition that you do the same.
ps…are you BK? …Clare?..Bwooowahhhhh!!!hahahahahahaha
Hi i am Sukio Somora from j apan greetings you
In J apan we no recover fron commidor Perry he give J apanes people politcal korrectness that different to ancient shogun strict way of life.
on early moring verwy fast train we all rike sardines in can and all stuffy. Then some j apanese men rike to touch spot and feel funny but i rike too so no complain..giggle giggle giggle giggle…if i no rike i go hah hoo judo chop!!!!! i fix
some aussie men like gideeeup ridem cowboy and do some rough thing but i rike that to0 so no complain as well…gigggle giggle giggle giggle
in j apan some say politcal korrectness come from mr Jo stalin but me kunnuno
i late for work now in Q ueensland tourist job so byby now
mY father he work for toyota 50 years he start at age 5 but he not satify w ith
his work effet and lose many sleep
bY from Sukio Sumura
Joan, Kate and Clare,
You attempt to complicate something that is very simple.
Biologically, physiologically, Male+Female=Unity - all the bits go together.
Get the wool of contraception and artificial insemination out of your eyes, just for a moment - in the real world, Male+Female complement each other. There is at the very least, a possibility of conception through their own unaided efforts.
That is never the case for Male+Male and Female+Female. They simply do not, as a pure matter of nature, fit together. They cannot, ever, at all, try as they might - and this applies to every single coupling that you care to select of this species - achieve conception.
They can sure fake it.
I prefer the real thing.
Oh, and Kate - never, not once, have I dared to impute poor motives to those you note might be living in my neighbourhood. Nevertheless, absolute sterility in the natural order is never marriage. It is something else.
Best wishes,
Martin
Dear Martin,
If you are going to go down the biological path with your argument, you might want to consider the fact that animals mate without the need for marriage. Humans do not need to marry in order to mate, and many don’t. Marriage is therefore something quite aside from the ability to reproduce with a mate of the opposite sex.
Marriage was in existence long before its religious influence and since the 1920s has been predominately about love and commitment. In Australia, 65% of marriages are civil marriages not religious marriages. I recommend that those in doubt about the meaning of marriage read books by historians and archaeologists on this subject (in which the impact of religion is also discussed). They may be surprised to find just how diverse and changing the definition has been over time. In one particular culture a woman can marry a man she has never met or been involved with even if he is already dead! Clearly, the purpose of the marriage has nothing to do with their ability to reproduce as a couple in the past or present.
In short, reproduction successfully occurs without the aid of marriage throughout the animal kingdom. In this country, as in most, the ability to reproduce as a couple is not a prerequisite for marriage nor is rearing children a required outcome of marriage.
Note to Martin.
Husband is the man who marries a woman.
A homosexual is a homosexual.
A bitch is a female dog.
A cow is a female beast.
A bull is a male beast.
A “gay” is a liar, a pretender - just the opposite of the made up bullshizer false label
Easy to understand?