Gay Marriage in New York

I’ve been following the debate about civil unions across the pond with interest and bemusement. America was founded on the noble principle that all men are born equal (although, at the time this sentiment didn’t extend to slaves or women). The States is not called the Land of the Free for nothing. Last month New York State legalised same sex marriage, the most populous state ever to have done so. New York has now joined a small select group that includes Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia. Because it’s New York, New York where Lady Liberty shines her torch the event has been widely reported across the globe. It’s even hit the media here in Turkey.

I assume I’m correct in thinking that a same sex union registered in New York has no legal standing in those states that do not recognise such relationships or have positively banned them. So it’s okay to be a child African bride, a forced Pakistani bride or a polygamous Arab but it’s not okay for two consenting adult Americans to decide who their significant other should be. What a strange situation. There will always be people who object to same sex relationships on moral or religious grounds. They are entitled to their views but are not entitled to force them on others. The wish of some to form a romantic bond with a member of the same sex is a personal issue. The legal recognition of it does not lead to anarchy and Armageddon.

What of my homeland? Civil partnerships were introduced in United Kingdom in 2004 which give same-sex couples rights and responsibilities identical to civil marriage. New Labour may well have put the country in hock for the next century but they did deliver a radical and comprehensive equal rights agenda. This was truly historic and I believe history will judge it so. About time too. I had become thoroughly fed up with a society that expected me to pay all my dues in return for second class citizenship and semi-rights. Liam and I married in 2008.

What of my fosterland? Homosexuality is not mentioned in the Turkish legal code and so gay people live in a kind of legal limbo neither protected nor persecuted, officially anyway. The Turkish Government has made it abundantly clear that it has no intention of introducing equal rights for lesbian and gay Turks. I have to add, our obvious union has never received a bad vibe from the Turks around us. If anything the reverse has been true. As non-Moslem heathens we’re Hell-bound anyway so it matters little what we do.

America is not perfect, no country is, but it is a beacon of freedom and hope for people from less blessed lands. Some people are gay. It’s just the way it is.

More on Perking the Pansies

I Believe the Children are our Future

For all the fast talk of political Islam and a return to piety there truly are two sides to this magnificent resurgent nation. Istanbul’s Kadir Has University clearly has a modern, progressive curriculum that allows students to express themselves in words and music in a fun and inclusive way. I’ve picked three great examples of this. The first two are uplifting romps that had us rolling in the aisles. The third brought us to our feet.


Yes, this really is a duet with Jennifer Saunders, presumably remixed from Shrek 2.


More on Perking the Pansies

Amy Winehouse RIP

I’m off my Turkey message to commemorate Amy Winehouse who died yesterday of a suspected drugs overdose. Her meteoric rise to fame and rapid descent into Hell was tragically predictable. Her seminal album Back to Black is work of a genius with lyrics laced with sorrow and utter desperation. Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Janis Joplin and now Amy - all died at the same age. It’s not called the 27 Club for nothing. She just couldn't come back from the black. Let’s hope she’ll be remembered more for her art and less for her addictions.

More on Perking the Pansies

Deliver Us From Delirium

I really don't know how the empire builders did it. Those buttoned up Victorians in heavy drapes must have been made of sterner stuff. It's 103 in old money and we've like a pair of camp vampires only venturing out between the hours of sunset and dawn. Our sofa radiates heat like embers from a dying grate, the home entertainment system has gone on strike and the top floor of the house has become an oven which our useless ceiling fan only assists. It’s been completely abandoned save for our clothes which radiate heat as if just removed from a tumble dryer. We take regular cold showers and Liam’s only bound copy of his treasured composition for string quartet is employed as a fan stand in an attempt to dry our clammy old hides. We move slowly. This is not the climate in which to do anything quickly. We've never been keen on air conditioning. In our old Yalıkavak house on the hill we were able to leave our windows ajar to be cooled by the constant sea breeze. The mozzie net protected us from assaults by the squadrons of bloodthirsty bugs. Bodrum is a different kettle of fish. Twenty four hour traffic and a constant throng demands that windows are kept firmly shut at night. We can bear no longer our glowing bed and the nightly rite of sleepless sweats so we've relaxed our aversion to air-con. We procured a unit from a local store. The following day a child arrived to install it. The pre-pubescent boy stared at our 18 inch thick uneven stone and concrete walls in absolute horror, shaking his head and fumbling despondently with his woefully inadequate tools.

Liam rang our landlady for assistance. Canny Hanife arrived with plums in hand, quickly followed by husband and son. For good measure our neighbours also joined the jolly fray. A Typically Turkish passionate and gesticulated debate ensued around our marital bed. We left them to it and put the kettle on. Eventually, the Turkish Jury awarded nil point to the child and his woefully inadequate tools and cast him out into the street. Off we went on another flight of fancy. The wall mounted unit was exchanged for a mobile machine which is vented out of a window. Another bloody catastrophe. The contraption did reduce the ambient temperature to almost sleep-able levels but it was like berthing next to the engine room of a cross channel ferry.

After weeks of sleep deprivation, we finally solved our debilitating predicament with the installation of a wall mounted air conditioning unit in the ground floor spare room where the walls are of standard girth. We’ve abandoned our marital bed with its superior sprung mattress for the rest of the summer. No matter, the gentle cooling hum has delivered us from delirium.

More on Perking the Pansies

Turkey's Got Talent

Sit back and enjoy a joyous discovery brought to you by You Tube and Yankee Istanbul blog Death by Dolmuş


More on Perking the Pansies

News of the World, RIP

I hear the hacking hacks at the News of the World, that famously progressive liberal rag, got caught red handed indulging in a little illegal phone tapping (as opposed to legal phone tapping which is commonplace in Turkey, only requiring consent from the local Jandarma chief). That’s the red tops for you, anything for a salacious scoop. The News of the World isn’t the only newspaper that panders to the base and reactionary instincts of the ignorati by any means. Now that it’s published its last issue the slack will be taken up by another soon enough. To think the British Government is about to hand over full control of BSB (the British satellite broadcaster) to News International, the News of the World’s parent company.

I must confess to one tiny regret about the demise of this 170 year old Sunday institution. If it hadn’t been for their relentless and vicious campaign to expose the twilight world of the perverted homosexual in the late 1970s I never would have known where to go for my jollies. I haven’t looked back since. So thank you, News of the Screws. I owe you one.
More on Perking the Pansies.

Spain's Got Talent

News from the other end of the Med. Swiss-based multi-national engineering company, ABB recently axed 160 jobs at a plant in Bilbao despite reporting record profits. Some ex-employees decided to do a full monty to highlight their plight. Spain has suffered particularly badly during the recession and 1 in 5 of the adult population is out of work. Thank you to Staying Sane in Spain for finding this. I find it a little cheeky but readers of a nervous disposition who find semi-naked hirsute men too seductive or offensive should change channels now.


More on Perking the Pansies

Global Village

Requests for me to contribute to other websites are like London buses. There’s nothing for months then two come along at once. First it was a guest post for Turkish Muse while Barbara, the author, spends a romantic few days in the city of lovers with her husband. This time it's it’s my interview for The Displaced Nation, a website dedicated to exploring why people become global residents. It's a stomping good read but then I would say that, wouldn't I?

More as usual on Perking the Pansies

Ultimate Blog Challenge

I've just joined the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I have to post every day on Perking the Pansies for the whole of July. Well, I post every day anyway so where's the challenge?

Old Money, No Money

We were summoned by a Turkish neighbour for moonlit drinks. Her name is Sofiya, a slightly batty older lady who speaks fluent English with a cut glass accent. Sofiya has been threatening us with an invitation for weeks by rapping on our window, poking her hand through the grill and startling our visitors. Our immediate neighbours, Vadim and Beril were also invited so we all scurried down the lane together. We approached an ornate set of heavy double doors and rang the bell. Sofiya flung open the doors to reveal a gorgeous candle-lit courtyard bursting with a copse of mature fruit trees - avocado, pomegranate and lemon – laid out before a pretty, whitewashed old Bodrum house. Liam was immediately drawn to a candle-lit niche in the stone wall partially hidden by the thicket. The recess contained a small statuette of Our Lady, a replica of the original from Meryemana (the house of the Virgin Mary, near Ephesus). Liam resisted the knee jerk urge to genuflect.

We discovered that pedigreed Sofiya had attended the Royal Society of Dramatic Art as a foreign student in the sixties where she had acquired her regal inflection. Her career in the arts was cut short by marriage to a Turkish diplomat whom she loved intensely. She travelled the world as the ambassador’s wife until his premature death about a decade ago. She still grieves him though that didn’t stop her flirting outrageously with Vadim. His protests that he was a one woman man received a sceptical response. In Sofiya’s experience, it’s quite normal for Turkish men to have a legion of women in tow at the same time; a modern twist on the old Moslem custom of taking more than one wife.

Drinks were plentiful and complemented by bountiful mezes freshly prepared by Sofiya's faithful old head-scarfed retainer who she calls ‘my Kurdish woman.’ We were serenaded by Vivaldi and classic crooners while the hired help fell to her knees to pray with gusto next to the stereo, disregarding completely the boozy chatter emanating from the terrace. This bizarre spectacle illustrated, as nothing else could, the polar extremes of Turkish society.

As Dean Martin’s honey tones dribbled from the speakers, Sofiya pulled me from my seat for a slow smooch around the terrace. Although she liked to dominate the conversation in both English and Turkish Sofiya was a gracious hostess, and the evening was a civilised bi-lingual diversion. Sofiya is old money through and through. She seems taken by us, though we are baffled by what old money can see in no money.

More on Perking the Pansies