No, I didn't watch the Gay and Lesbian

Mardi Gras. I watch almost no television. 

I watch about half an hour of television a day - a news service which concentrates more on international than local news. The only reason I watch it is so that I have an idea of what people who watch television are being told.  I read newspapers which have a "good" reputation - although I tend to treat those with caution as well. I also get news from a range of other sources - some of which I trust, others of which I am wary. I hope I am reasonably well informed.

Very occasionally I will watch a documentary if the subject catches my interest.

What I don't need to watch is a "celebration" of gay and lesbian "culture" - a so called "Mardi Gras". It just doesn't appeal to me at all. Why? Because it is not the way my friends in same-sex relationships behave at all. 

My cousin is in a same sex relationship. When it became legal to do so in the UK he married the man he has been with for the past forty years. His partner is one of the nicest, kindest people I know and, as a family, we were united in feeling pleased for them. But they didn't make a fuss. It was a small, quiet ceremony.  

They don't walk down the street holding hands. They don't feel any need to do that. 

My friends R...and G... are the same. They married overseas before it became legal here because they wanted to show their commitment to one another but they did it without a fuss. Like my cousin and his partner they don't walk down the street holding hands. 

Neither couple feels the need to flaunt their sexuality. I know other gay men, perhaps a dozen or more. Yes, you might know they are gay but they don't feel any need to flaunt it. They actually lead fairly quiet and conservative lives...even the three I know in very artistic occupations. 

It is much the same with the lesbian women I know. There are a number of them in long term relationships with other women. They don't flaunt the fact. They just get on with life as they have been getting on with life for many years. 

The Mardi Gras televised by our national network is of no interest to the people I know. They did not watch what was billed as a "celebration of GLTBQIA culture". 

"It's rubbish," R... once told me after someone we both knew had asked him about it. R... and his partner were going to be in the same city the weekend it was held. They were going to the theatre that night. I remember when they got back asking whether they had enjoyed the play they saw and the response was, "That alone would have been worth the trip."

But go to the Mardi Gras? No, they don't need to. They have never felt the need. It makes me wonder why other people do feel the need to go, to participate. Do they still feel insecure? Are they uncertain? Why do they feel they are discriminated against?

The first march all those years ago was a protest against what was real discrimination. "Now most of that is more imagined than real," R... tells me.  I have to accept he knows. He has lived through it. 

And I feel no need to watch anything like that on television. It's not my world.