Just let the gays drink wine

One hundred people from all walks of life gather for a party. Everyone’s having a pretty good time together. Until someone orders a glass of wine.

The marriage equality debate is stifled by a minority group with power. What will Malcolm do? (Pic: Ellen Smith)

One hundred people gather in a room for a club’s social function one Saturday night. They come from all walks of life in this group. They’re young and old and everything in between. A few are super rich, most are in the middle and a few are quite poor. They’re mostly white and Christian overall, but people of all races and religions are represented in various numbers.

Everyone’s having a pretty good time and mixing relatively well. It’s fun.

At one point in the night, a gay man goes to the bar to order a drink. He’s in the mood for a Chardonnay — something oaky but a little crisp. It’s nearly spring after all.

But the bartender tells him that at one of these functions, a decade or so ago, it was decided that the rules should be changed to ban gays and lesbians from drinking wine.

They’re still welcome to have a light beer, of course, which is basically the same thing.

Only it’s not. Not even close.

The man is perplexed. Everyone else at these parties is allowed to have wine. Why can’t he? Literally everyone in the room can order a glass of red or white at their whim. Heck, they can start on an aged white and decide they’d prefer a younger red, and maybe even switch to something in a box at the end of the night.

What applies to the group doesn’t apply to him. He’s not pleased and neither are the others, so they speak to the organiser.

“Look, my hands are tied,” the man, let’s call him Malcolm, says. “This issue was decided long ago. Changing it would be a nightmare. It’s too much, too soon.”

But why? The gays wander around the room and talk to the other revellers about the issue. After a while, they discover that most people are perfectly fine with them having a glass of wine.

“What’s the big issue?” most ask.

“If I can have wine, you should too,” another says. “Hell, my gay son comes to these things sometimes and he would love to have wine. It’s not fair that he can’t.”

The group, by now aware of the pointless injustice to which they’re subjected, do many, many polls of the room and find consistently that 70 per cent are in favour of change.

More than two-thirds of those at the party are happy to see the club come into the 21st Century.

Emboldened, the gays and lesbians go back to speak to Malcolm and share the happy news.

Suddenly, another committee member — we’ll call him Cory — overhears the conversation and rushes over to remind Malcolm that a small number of people at the party are vehemently opposed to gay people having wine.

People, regardless of their sexual orientation, shouldn’t be restricted from drinking wine, or champagne, or enjoying any of the rights other people enjoy.(Pic: iStock)

This lot, let’s call them the ultra religious and conservative right, aren’t the majority, by any means, but they tend to have a lot of money. It’s money which helps fund functions like these.

And they weirdly have a lot of power — power that equals support for the committee.

Malcolm’s reign as social club president is tenuous at best and he can’t afford to annoy this small but vocal group. So he asks them what they think.

“There’s only 10 of them — who cares what they want!” one of the opponents screeches.

There aren’t many more of the opponent’s faction, but that doesn’t seem to matter much in this argument.

Things get heated. Suddenly no one at the party is having much fun anymore. Those who don’t want the gay partygoers to have wine start saying nasty stuff and the kids in attendance get upset.

“It’s a slippery slope — give them wine now and they’ll want to eat a chair or drink poison next!” the conservatives yell.

Those who are in favour of changing the rules can’t see what the fuss is about.

There’s another small section of the party who couldn’t give a toss either way — they’re out in the smoking area chatting, ignoring this palaver inside.

Caught in the middle, the 10 gays who just want a quiet glass of wine — the same wine everyone else is allowed to have, and has been allowed to have for yonks — are tired. They’re sick of being subjected to awful abuse, just for asking for what’s fair.

Malcolm is in a bind. This other bloke who used to run the club had a contingency for this very issue — an expensive and non-binding vote of the whole group. So he goes with that.

He tells the opponents they’re welcome to ignore its outcome, but having it will appease the wine-wanters and their massive group of supporters for a while.

So he empties the committee’s coffers of all its money and embarks on a divisive, inflammatory, hate-fuelled and utterly pointless $160 million ballot asking a question that was answered hours ago.

What happens next? Well, we’ll have to wait and see.

But whichever way it goes, it seems an awful lot of heartache and money will be wasted on something that could’ve been easily resolved with a quiet word to the bartender, based on general consensus.

Almost everyone wants it, or doesn’t care either way. And the small angry group of old men in the corner would get over it eventually.

So just let us have a bloody glass of wine, would you?

Shannon Molloy is a National TV Writer for News Corp Australia and an avid wine drinker.