I’m a Yes... but there is a part of me tempted

FUNNY how the years fly by. It is strange to think that my old mate Tom Robinson turns 65 next month. It seems like only yesterday that he was strutting his stuff on Top Of The Pops.

The name probably doesn’t ring an immediate bell, but you will almost certainly be familiar with Tom’s music. Almost four decades after it was released, his biggest hit, 2-4-6-8 Motorway, remains a staple of daytime radio. It also featured prominently in the Only Fools And Horses Christmas special of 1989, The Jolly Boys’ Outing.

Though he was involved in highprofile collaborations with artists like Elton John and Peter Gabriel, Tom’s musical fortunes ebbed and flowed over the years.

Nowadays he is best known as a radio presenter and enthusiastic champion of up-and-coming performers on his BBC Radio 6 show.

Yet he deserves to be more than just a footnote in the history of popular culture. At a time when it was neither profitable nor popular, Tom was the first openly homosexual rock star.

He even managed to get his groundbreaking anthem Glad To Be Gay as far as No.18 in the UK charts back in 1978, even though it was the subject of an airplay ban on the Beeb.

Anyone who has ever seen him perform the song at one of his legendary live shows is unlikely to ever forget the experience.

Despite all his brave campaigning, though, Tom ended up falling foul of some elements in the gay community. It was seen as an act of betrayal in certain quarters when he settled down with a woman, fathered two children and eventually got married.

Yet he calmly replied to his critics by saying that he still considered himself to be a gay man, but it just so happened that he had fallen in love with a woman. He also recorded a new final verse for Glad To Be Gay in which he made it perfectly clear that he wouldn’t be taking any bullying from ‘the righton and righteous’.

Still, he has remained a dedicated poster boy for gay rights. Just like he was back in the Seventies and Eighties, he is the very best and most effective sort of campaigner: intelligent, witty, courteous, reasonable and, equally important, charming.

Frankly, I don’t see anyone like that on the Yes side in the gay marriage referendum.

Nor do any of the main figures pressing for a No vote fit that description either, of course, but then again I wasn’t really expecting them to.

I’m happy to lay my cards on the table here. As much to amuse myself as anything else, there is a handy little rule of thumb that I sometimes use. It works on the basis that if the likes of the Iona Institute are in favour of something, then I’m more than likely to be against it and vice versa.

THE problem in this instance is that there are practically no likeable characters on either side of the argument. It would almost be preferable at this stage if both the Yes and No camps were to lose. Look, all my instincts are to vote in favour of the proposed amendment. I’m broadly of the opinion that people should be free to do whatever makes them happy so long as nobody else comes to harm in the process.

But there is something so smug, arrogant and, yes, self-righteous about some of the Yes campaigners that I’d almost welcome seeing them humiliated by the other crowd. No one side has the monopoly on unappealing supporters in this debate.

I’d love to be as certain about anything as some of these individuals seem to be about everything. And if I were a gay man or woman, I certainly wouldn’t want the likes of Rory O’Neill or Una Mullally purporting to speak on my behalf.

This should have been an open-and-shut case. The result ought to have been a foregone conclusion.

Even before the clerical abuse scandals, it was blindingly obvious that the Catholic Church had held far too much sway for too long. The hierarchy’s creepy prurience about what went on in the nation’s bedrooms was way past its sell-by date, but the game was really up when it emerged what they’d allowed to go on under their noses.

Granted, I still think the amendment will be passed. Through their own complacency and arrogance, though, the Yes side have taken what should have been an open goal and failed to stick it convincingly in the back of the net.

Of course, the editorial columns of the Irish Times are full of referendum comment and analysis. But the bigger point is that the entire campaign has, by and large, failed to capture the interest of the average undecided punter in the street.

Worse, not only have those on the Yes side failed to make a persuasive campaign aimed at the floating voter, they have also managed to alienate vast numbers of people who would normally be sympathetic to their cause.

I’ll be voting Yes despite the best efforts of Rory, Una and the others, not because of them.

Tom Robinson they’re not.