Our son was married on July 3 – in the garden of the Palace of Versailles. The day was beautiful – high summer in Europe, flowers in bloom everywhere and possibly the most romantic location on the planet.
I’m sure, as we told selected friends and family, they wondered what we were still doing in Townsville, just days before the ceremony. No doubt they also marvelled at our composure, given a wedding was in the offing, not least, the wedding of our eldest child.
The answer isn’t simple but it is the truth.
Jesse and his partner had planned their first European holiday a year ago. They’d been together for just over two years and had already had one adventure, travelling to California for Coachella, a music festival in the desert outside Palm Springs, last April.
This was to be the trip of a lifetime, however, and I think it’s safe to say that news of a wedding in the middle of it would make it one to remember. The fact is, we’ll remember this wedding for very many, different reasons, not least of which it was the first for any of our four children.
Our son is gay, has been all his life. To us, always, he has been our son, our first-born child, an endearing, chaotic, creative and brilliant young man with so many friends I’m sure I will never meet them all.
I hesitate to use the word gay to describe him because his life has certainly not always been happy. He has faced more than his fair share of bullying, particularly during his school days, and we have had to choose the right time to share his “status” within our circle of friends lest we bring harm to him and to lifelong relationships. It shouldn’t be like this.
I did have some preparation. My brother, the youngest of six children, five of us girls, is also gay. He too has a partner of longstanding, as does another of my relatives.
Our parents, both passed away now, were lifelong Catholics. They believed, and they taught us to believe. They also taught us the value of honesty, respect and inclusiveness.
Luckily that third value had been imprinted long before my brother worked up the courage to tell his family. Among our wider family, our lovely network of uncles, aunties and cousins, he is held in high esteem, as he is by his sisters and all our families.
To us, being gay is not unusual. Being rude and disrespectful is. In terms of status, Uncle Andy’s means that, come birthday time for nieces and nephews, there are much better gifts thanks to his childless relationship.
Being gay hasn’t stopped him being a real father figure to those whose own fathers have become absent. Thanks to his upbringing, not his gender, he makes just as good a dad as anyone else – better than some. 
Jesse Roebuck and Alastair on the Amalfi Coast in Italy. Source: Supplied
So, when it finally dawned on me when he was four that Jesse was also gay, it didn’t come as a shock, or a disappointment. This, to me, was just another type of child.
Some are shy, some are overbearing in their demands, and some are artistic, pedantic, noisy … even gay. Interestingly, most people want to know what his father thought of the situation, as though finding out your son is gay really is an affront to your own masculinity. Having been through this before, I’m inclined to give people a little time to get used to the idea because not everyone grows up with a gay brother or sister, or uncle. But Karl didn’t need any time. Jesse is his son, full stop.
He supports him, worries about him, and protects him just as he does the rest of his children. They share a wicked sense of humour, the same deep love for animals and, I might add, the same insanely wide lazy streak at times. It is exactly the reaction I expected – to have been anything else would mean, obviously, that I had chosen the wrong person in the first place to share my life with. As all parents know and understand implicitly, the day you give birth to a child is the day you start preparing for their future. Your plans include character formation, schooling, relationships and hopefully, one day, the appearance of grandchildren.
A wedding and expanding your own family is high on the list of expectations, at least in the beginning.
The day I opened his email (cunningly titled “Surprise!”), I was on the phone at work, speaking with a news contact about printing a letter about gay marriage.
At the time there had been ongoing debate for some weeks about the same sex marriage issue, an issue I am certain will not go away.
As we discussed the fairly simple, and routine for me, idea of placing a letter to the editor I was (quietly) in tears at the magnificent news in front of me – “I asked Alastair if he would like to spend the rest of his life with me a month or two back and he said yes”.
As I hung up the phone I realised – this business of being part of the discussion, part of the news, is never going to end, not for us, and not for Jesse and Al.
The wedding plans were straightforward – they’d planned to be in Paris as part of their trip and the French government had recently legislated same-sex marriage.
“Obviously our relationship and resulting ‘union’ or whatever the term is these days is a topic in the media at the moment, but I don’t really care about that. I have never been an activist, nor am I religious. My opinion is that I don’t need a piece of paper or a group (government or religious) to tell me the validity of my relationship. We have decided to use the upcoming holiday as a ‘wedding’ of sorts as it is legal for us to get married in France, so we will be ‘tying the knot’ in Paris.
“I am really, really happy, I don’t think I have ever been as happy as I have been these past two years, I didn’t realise a person could be so happy. I have been so blessed to have had a wonderful life as part of a brilliant family who I adore, and now I get to embark on the next chapter of my life with someone who I know will only improve on what has already been a wonderful life.
Ann Roebuck. Source: Supplied
“I hope no one will be offended we have chosen to do it this way, but I always thought of marriage as an adventure and loved the idea of elopement. What a cool story to be able to tell in the future. Can’t wait to talk to you about it, Love you all so very much.”
We understand the argument those opposed to same-sex marriage mount. I was raised a Catholic and lived that life for many years before the very fact of my son’s identity crashed through the haze all religions perpetrate. Karl, although not raised in a religious family, is clever enough to recognise the forces at play.
He always found my adherence to another’s view of what my life should be like unusual, to say the least.
I understand the church’s need to adhere to its rules and have its conventions respected, most simply because to change the law of the land would put it out of step with the very people it seeks to hold within its grasp.
I just don’t agree with it any more. And what of those who, in the name of religion, would look at my son and his partner and threaten violence, shame, banishment because a book written by a group of men so long ago tells them they are not normal?
This disrespect for people, this clinging on to power at the expense of the inherent dignity of a section of humanity is increasingly odious. Enough.
Someone asked me recenly why I had chosen to leave the faith and my answer was unequivocal – because I grew up.
We love our son and we are so proud to welcome Al to our family. Our love for the two of them is the same as for all of our children and the people they have chosen to share their lives with. We will continue to welcome everyone into the amazing life we have made.
Black, white, brindle, gay or straight, beaten, downhearted, crazy … they are all welcome here. We’ll work it out, because that’s what love does.
We drank champagne at midnight on the third, just as Jesse and Al did after their wedding in Paris. We shared their love and delight over the phone and imagined what a brilliant afternoon it had been.
Romantic as it was, Jesse and Al should not have had to travel to France to get married.
They should have been celebrating here with family and friends, and we would have been just like all the other parents who happily spend time and money preparing for one of the biggest events in family life – a wedding.
Author: Ann Roebuck
Publication: The Sunday Telegraph
Date: 7 September 2013