Actor Colin Farrell has written an open letter urging Irish people to vote for marriage equality, saying the fact his gay brother had to go to Canada to get married is “insane”. Ireland will have a referendum on legalising same-sex marriage next year. In a letter in Sunday World, Farrell writes that he first realised his brother Eamon was gay when he was about 12. “I remember feeling surprised. Intrigued. Curious. Not bi-curious before you start getting ideas. “I was curious because it was different from anything I’d known or heard of and yet it didn’t seem unnatural to me. I had no reference for the existence of homosexuality. I had seen, by that age, no gay couples together. I just knew my brother liked men and, I repeat, it didn’t seem unnatural to me. Farrell says his brother didn’t choose to be gay. “Yes, he chose to wear eyeliner to school and that probably wasn’t the most pragmatic response to the daily torture he experienced at the hands of school bullies. “But he was always proud of who he was. Proud and defiant and, of course, provocative. Even when others were casting him out with fists and ridicule and the laughter of pure loathsome derision, he maintained an integrity and dignity that flew in the face of the cruelty that befell him. “I don’t know where those bullies are now, the ones who beat him regularly. Maybe some of them have found peace and would rather forget their own part of a painful past. Maybe they’re sitting on bar stools and talking about “birds and faggots” and why one’s the cure and the other the disease. “But I do know where my brother is. He’s at home in Dublin living in peace and love with his husband of some years, Steven. They are about the healthiest and happiest couple I know. They had to travel a little farther than down the aisle to make their vows, though, to Canada, where their marriage was celebrated. “That’s why this is personal to me. The fact that my brother had to leave Ireland to have his dream of being married become real is insane. INSANE.” Farrell says it’s time to right the scales of justice in Ireland, and is urging people to register to vote. “How often do we get to make history in our lives? Not just personal history. Familial. Social. Communal. Global. The world will be watching. We will lead by example. Let’s lead toward light.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Monday, 17th November 2014 - 8:22am