As the votes are being counted in Ireland’s referendum on gay marriage, it appears that the country has chosen ‘yes’ to marriage equality. To celebrate the occasion here is a list of 10 hot Irish men that you can now legally marry:
10. Colin Farrell
9. Chris O’Dowd
8. Daniel Day-Lewis
7. Jack Reynor
6. Niall Horan
5. Cillian Murphy
4. Michael Fassbender
3. Jonathan Rhys Meyers
2. Pierce Brosnan
1. Jamie Dornan
Match.com has launched the 2015 campaign ‘#loveyourimperfections’, encouraging us all to embrace the things that make us unique. I have contributed to the campaign with this post which is a challenge to all those who read it to stop waiting to be perfect before you feel like you’re worthy of love. After all it’s our mistakes, misbehaviours, quirks, habits and our little obsessions that make us who we are.
If you are waiting to lose weight before you are ready to find love then you will never find love. If you are waiting to have the perfect six-pack before you are ready to find love then you will never find love. If you are waiting for anything about you to change before you are ready to find love then you will never find love. If you are waiting to be perfect then you will never find love.
I used to think that I would be ready for love and a relationship only once I had controlled all the external elements of my being, that only when my body, job and social life were in ideal alignment then would I find the perfect guy. The fact is that my life will never be perfect and neither will yours.
Stop waiting to be perfect to feel that you are worthy of love whether it be love from someone else or self-love. It’s exhausting to pursue perfection. Why? Because there is no measureable end goal. The finish line is always moving. How will you know when you’re perfect? The pursuit of perfection does not lead to happiness. It leads to dissatisfaction with the moment. Perfection does not exist and as such the pursuit of perfection is a pointless cause.
But who wants to be with a perfect partner anyway? Personally I don’t want to be with someone who wants me to be perfect, in fact, I want to be with someone who loves my imperfections. I want a man who will love me even when I’ve put on weight, when I haven’t gone to gym for three months, when I’m sick and when I’m feeling ugly. My future partner needs to understand that sometimes I shave and sometimes I don’t, that sometimes I trim my chest hair but most of the time I look like I’ve been stranded on a tropical island for months with only a Wilson volleyball as a companion. My future partner needs to understand that these external things do not define who I am and as such I don’t want a relationship that fluctuates depending on such things. The right person will love me for who I am always not who I am sometimes.
It’s our imperfections that actually make us the most beautiful. The Japanese have known this for centuries. Kintsugi, the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with lacquer resin mixed with powdered gold is based on highlighting imperfections as beautiful fragments of the overall story. As a philosophy it speaks to breakage and repair becoming part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. We should apply this same approach to mending the parts of us that we see as broken and imperfect.
My body is covered in scars and marks. I have a long scar on my knuckles from when I cut myself working in a cocktail bar, I have a scar on my chin from when I was dumped by a wave on family holiday and I have little stretch marks on my sides from when I went through a growth spurt in grade 8. All these blemishes represent moments in my life and instead of hiding them, I have chosen to embrace them as markers of memories.
Only once you have learnt to appreciate all the parts that make up who you are will you then be ready for love. In the end though, it’s not about being ready for someone else’s love but learning to love yourself.
Watch the campaign video here to see how the things that embarrass us about ourselves might actually be the things that others find endearing.
Image by Willy Vanderperre
There’s an area of same-sex marriage equality that we’ve neglected to consider.
We’ve been fighting so hard to have our rights recognised that we’ve overlooked an important element of the same-sex marriage process. We’ve been too focused on the immediate goal of equality that we haven’t thought about what comes next. There’s a question that until now we have not dared ask ourselves.
“Where do I find gay wedding cards?”.
Luckily, Emily Belden has come up with the solution in the form of HappyHappyGayGay.com, an online greeting card store. The US$5 cards are written and designed by Emily to celebrate same-sex love, marriage, enGAYgements, and other milestones while a portion of each card sale goes to LGBTQ organisation The Trevor Project.
Emily, who is straight, conceptualised HAPPY HAPPY GAY GAY after realizing there was a limited selection of cards dedicated to this demographic.
“My gay friend was one of the first to get married after DOMA died. My option was to send him a greeting card clearly meant for a straight couple, or send nothing at all. So I sent nothing at all,” she explained.
A month later, she launched the slick site where shoppers, gay or straight, can easily nab one of the affordable designs.
Click here to check out the selection of cards available.
“Wont somebody please think of the children?” – Helen Lovejoy
Just like Helen Lovejoy, politicians, religious leaders and all those who oppose same-sex marriage claim that their first and most important concern is ‘the children’. They stand by their convictions on the claim that they are protecting ‘the children’ from the malevolent force that is homosexual parents. They argue that same-sex couples cannot provide for ‘the children’ in the same way that heterosexual parents can. That children need a mother and a father. But what about straight single parents? Children who have lost a parent? Should we ban unmarried, single women from having children or take back a child when he or she looses a parent by misfortune or divorce? Clearly, this argument is flawed.
Once they’ve emotionally exhausted themselves by thinking of all the wrongs that same-sex couples will do to the aforementioned children, they move on to their next argument; same-sex marriage will destroy the moral fabric that holds society together. In essence, if men can marry men, they claim, then what’s next? A man marrying a horse? Well I’ve done my research and it appears that men have already been afforded the right to marry their equine lovers. Surely it’s time for the gays?
The problem with all arguments put forward by the opposition, and the reason why they’ll eventually loose the debate, is because they aren’t saying what they really want to say. They aren’t basing their argument on their true belief and that is that those who oppose same-sex marriage oppose homosexuality. The real reason that they do not want same-sex couples to be afforded the same rights as heterosexual couples is because they fervently disagree with homosexuality. Obviously they never raise this point in public debates and forums because it sounds much more heroic to fight against same-sex marriage on behalf of the innocent children than it does because of your own personal feelings towards the people it will effect.
I look forward to being part of an honest debate, one whereby the issues are discussed honestly and openly, though I doubt we’ll ever hear a politician openly state “I don’t support same-same marriage because I don’t like gays”. It’s not very modern to publicly talk about your opposition to homosexuality and anyway, people sympathise much more with the plight of ‘the children’.
In the end though, there is no moral or ethical reason why same-sex marriage should not be legalised just as there is no moral or ethical reason why women should not be allowed to vote, or couples to marry within different racial groups and look how that turned out.
On Tuesday, France became the 14th country in the world to legalise same-same sex marriage, a week after the New Zealand government voted to have their marriage bill amended.
Unlike New Zealand, where there was strong support for same-sex marriage, polls show that the French are deeply divided on the issue. The bill, which will also give gay and lesbian couples the right to adopt children, will only become law when it is signed by President Francois Hollande. Although a popularity slump has left the president with one of the lowest approval ratings of any French president, it is believed that Mr Hollande will support the bill.
Vive La France.
New Zealand has become the 13th country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage and the first in the Asia-Pacific region. On Wednesday night, the New Zealand parliament, backed by Prime Minister John Key voted on a bill to amend the 1955 Marriage Act.
New Zealand joins the following countries who recognise same-sex marriage:
Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, South Africa, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Uruguay.
More information click here.
Do you think that New Zealand’s bill amendment will encourage other countries in the region to follow suit?
Note: The original Marriage Act that was amended on Wednesday was the 1955 Marriage Act, not the 1995 Marriage Act as originally reported.
THE MODERN GAY GUIDE TO LIFE 