Gay life - Farmer Dave

Rodney Croome

Wed Jan 17, 2007

Love will find you wherever you live.

All happy relationships resemble one another, each unhappy relationship is unhappy in its own way.

Tolstoy was writing about families in the sentence I’ve just reworked, and would not have been happy with the homo-circumstances of that reworking.

But the point is still as strong: every sadness is unique, all misery lonesome.

That’s worth keeping in mind when it comes to the heart-rending description by openly-gay, former Big Brother housemate and West Queensland farmer, David Graham, of the breakdown of his very public relationship and the relocation of his ex-boyfriend to Sydney.

We can offer him our sympathies (I went through the same thing a decade ago when my first boyfriend Nick Toonen and I split. Our relationship was in every magazine and on every current affairs program. I understand how terrible it is to feel like you’re letting down everyone who wants or needs to see lasting loving gay unions).

We can defend him if, and more likely when, the mainstream media gets hold of the story and anti-gay commentators turn it into an attack on LGBT human rights.

But we should be very wary of drawing lessons from David Graham’s heartbreak.

I’m not just talking about the obvious points people will make: it was naïve of DG to be certain such a new love would last, to make that love so public, not to wonder what divergent aspirations his boyfriend might have, and to lumber both his relationship and the cause of same-sex marriage with the expectation that they had a common destiny.

Block your ears to words like these because they are only ever inspired by the pain and disillusionment of those who utter them, never by his or her wisdom in matters of love or social change.

Much harder to dismiss are the more subtle lessons people will want to draw.

One example goes something like this: when gay men struggle to escape a deeply homophobic environment and find somewhere the streets are paved pink, the last thing they want is to return to a place that reminds them of what they left. The DNA bio of DG’s ex, Sherif, indicates that he suffered a lot in his native Lebanon and went all out to get to Australia. If you were he, which Darling would you settle in, hurst or Downs?

I admit, there’s truth in this. I’ve seen it so often there must be. But it’s not the whole truth. Just as common, but always less obvious, are those gay men who aren’t inevitably cannoned to rainbow central from a claustrophobic closet. Instead they search for and then embrace the right small community, one that offers the interconnection they miss without the intolerance they loath.

It happens. I’ve seen it. And that’s why I say to out gay farmers like David Graham, don’t give up hope, your man’s out there.

In the meantime, David Graham is battling to save his lifestock. If you'd like to provide him with some very practical help click here.

http://www.rodneycroome.id.au/weblog