Listen in as 10-year-old Sam asks his father a question or two.
SAM: Dad. Can you help me please? I’m confused.
DAD: It depends on what’s confusing you. If you want the winner of the next Melbourne Cup, I can’t help you, but if you want to know who was the more important songwriter in The Beatles – John Lennon or Ringo Starr – then I can.
SAM: The Beatles? Are they a band or something?
DAD: Yes. They were a band.
SAM: That’s good because I don’t really understand why there was such a fuss about Macklemore singing his song at the NRL Grand Final.
DAD: Oh, that. Some people get upset at the thought of two people of the same sex liking each other so much that they want to kiss each other lots and lots. In fact, so much, they want to marry each other.
SAM: Like you and mum.
DAD: Not really, because your mum and I aren’t married.
SAM: Aren’t you?
DAD: No. We didn’t want to.
SAM: If you change your minds will you invite me to the wedding?
DAD: Of course.
SAM: So why are some people upset if two people with the same set of private parts want to marry each other? I thought everyone loved it when people got married.
DAD: Some people are of the belief that marriage is exclusively about a man and a woman having children and bringing them up well.
SAM: Then how come I’m born if you and mum aren’t married?
DAD: Because. Just because.
SAM: If marriage is essential for having children how did the first people and their friends get born if there was nobody around old enough to get married and be their parents?
Sam. I’ve never said anyone needs their parents to marry each other before they can be born. The people who didn’t want Macklemore to sing his song were saying that, not me.
SAM: Why do they say that? Can they tell me how people got born a long time ago — say even before the NRL began?
#Macklemore will perform his gay rights song at the #NRL Grand Final, even though Tony Abbott says it should be banned. #Insiders #auspol pic.twitter.com/VXcHlbH4qw
— Insiders ABC (@InsidersABC) September 30, 2017
DAD: I don’t know. You’d have to ask them.
SAM: Do you mean, ask someone who’s married?
DAD: I suppose so.
SAM: Like Auntie Betty and Uncle Barry?
DAD: Yes. You can ask them next time they visit.
SAM: If they are married, why don’t they have any children?
DAD: I don’t know. You’d have to ask them.
SAM: Dad. You don’t seem to know much.
DAD: I don’t know everything, but I do know some things.
SAM: Like what?
DAD: Some people didn’t want Macklemore to sing that song because they think if people with the same private parts are allowed to marry each other it will lead to boys dressing up in skirts to go to school.
SAM: You mean like Sam Newman and Billy Brownless, and lots of footy and rugby players do when they play dress ups on T.V. or at the end of the year?
DAD: Something like that, but not quite.
SAM: What else do you know?
DAD: They also think God will get upset if people who can’t have children marry each other.
SAM: Like Auntie Betty and Uncle Barry, or Granma when she got married last year, two years after Grandpa died? She’s really old Dad. She must be 65. Girls can’t have children when they are 65, can they?
DAD: It’s not likely.
SAM: That’s what I thought.
DAD: But I think God is happy Granma got married again, and Auntie Betty and Uncle Barry are married.
"In a bizarre twist Tony Abbott has expressed his love for an Aust band whose lead singer is gay & married to a man"https://t.co/16OlSoRhhe
— Susan Metcalfe (@susanamet) October 2, 2017
SAM: Do the people who don’t like Macklemore’s song think that marriage is a religious thing; that God has a say in it?
DAD: I suppose they do.
SAM: Well, you know my friend at school, Bruce.
DAD: Of course I do.
SAM: Well, his mum is a marriage celebrant and she marries lots of people, and Bruce told me she doesn’t believe in God, but lots of people she’s married have children after they get married. How come?
DAD: I don’t know Sam. Go ask your mother.
SAM: I already have and she told me to go ask you.
DAD: Oh. Did she!
SAM: The people who didn’t want Macklemore to sing that song don’t make sense to me. Did you like Macklemore’s song?
DAD: Not really. I’d rather they had Paul McCartney singing ‘Let It Be’.
SAM: Who is Paul McCartney?
DAD: Your mother should know. Ask her.
Rocky Dabscheck is a musician/songwriter and front person for Rocky and The Two Bob Millionaires. He is also the author of Stoney Broke and the Hi-Spenders.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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'Ponce the Rapper': the Macklemore replacement Tony Abbott would approve of. pic.twitter.com/sR01eFm9KN
— Mark Humphries (@markhumphries) September 28, 2017
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