Q+A March 10 - Susan Wood interviews Taryn Kerr and Sasha Kljakovic

Sunday March 10, 2012
 
SUSAN WOOD interviews TARYN KERR and SASHA KLJAKOVIC
 
Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE and one hour later on TV ONE plus 1. Repeated Sunday evening at 11:30pm. Streamed live at www.tvnz.co.nz.   
 
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Q + A – March 10, 2013
 
TARYN KERR and SASHA KLJAKOVIC
 
Interviewed by SUSAN WOOD
 
SUSAN                         Taryn, Sasha, good morning.
 
SASHA KLJAKOVIC – Newly engaged
                                       Hello.
 
TARYN KERR – Newly engaged
                                       Morning.
 
SUSAN                         Engagement party last night.
 
SASHA                         Yes. Feeling a bit tired.
 
SUSAN                         I was going to say you’re looking quite perky, considering. Why does it matter to you to be married to each other?
 
SASHA                         It’s just essentially just to be the same as everybody else.
 
SUSAN                         But you're not. You're two women.
 
SASHA                         Yep, we are two women.
 
TARYN                         I think it’s important for our family that we’re building, and whatever definition of family we might have, you know, compared to other people, it’s really important to us to be able to make that commitment and do the normal things – like buy the house, have the babies. All that sort of stuff.
 
SUSAN                         Your families support you on this?
 
SASHA                         Yeah.
 
TARYN                         For the most part, yes.
 
SUSAN                         For the most part? What does that mean?
 
SASHA                         Well, it’s always a journey for anybody.
 
TARYN                         Straight or gay.
 
SASHA                         Yeah.
 
TARYN                         Any kind of wedding is a bit stressful, but, you know, it’s just—
 
SUSAN                         With two brides, I’d imagine that’d be perhaps even more the case.
 
SASHA                         Yeah. You know, buying two rings, buying two dresses.
 
SUSAN                         Are you going to do the traditional long white dress sort of thing?
 
TARYN                         Oh yeah.
 
SASHA                         I’d say so. Taryn might jazz it up a bit.
 
TARYN                         Fabulous dresses.
 
SUSAN                         But the fact is you are not traditional, and a lot of people who have very firmly held beliefs, very genuine beliefs, say that marriage is between a man and a woman and God. What do you say to those people?
 
TARYN                         I don’t think marriage has anything to do with religion. I think marriage is about anybody that wants a— you know, within reason – who wants to make a commitment to each other.
 
SASHA                         And if you look back in time, actually marriage is something that was a Pagan ritual that came before lots of other religions, so it’s actually just a symbol. That’s what marriage is – back in the day, way back in the day.
 
SUSAN                         But you could civil union. That does that, doesn’t it? That commits you to each other.
 
SASHA                         You could.
 
TARYN                         Have you been to a civil union ceremony?
 
SUSAN                         No, I haven’t.
 
TARYN                         Yeah. You know, “You are now committed as partners for life” sounds very different to “you are married”.
 
SUSAN                         Yeah. But you're not going to be man and wife. You see, it’s not going to be traditional anyway.
 
TARYN                         No, but “you are married as wives”. I suppose it sounds different. But it’s… You know, yeah.
 
SUSAN                         Children on the agenda?
 
TARYN                         Oh yeah.
 
SUSAN                         And if you can't have children naturally— Well, obviously you’re going to have to get some extra help along that. Would you look at adopting, though?
 
SASHA                         Oh, that’s a possibility.
 
TARYN                         Yeah, we’d like to be able to consider all options, and that’s what we’re after is we want to have options.
 
SASHA                         The same right as everyone else, I think. For us, I think, we’re so sort of… It’s so not an issue for us this whole, you know, marriage debate. For us, it should just be how it is.
 
TARYN                         Well, it is an issue. You know, it definitely is an issue for us.
 
SASHA                         Oh, it is an issue, yes.
 
TARYN                         But, I mean, I suppose we just feel so normal. We feel part of our community. We’re embraced by everybody in our professional lives, personal lives and things like that, so we’ve sort of gone, “Oh, actually, we can't get married.” You know, the next step is really difficult for us.
 
SUSAN                         But there is a big part of the New Zealand community – more than a third, probably, if you believe the polls – actually say, “Nah, it’s not between two women. It’s not between two men. It’s between a man and a woman and it’s a sacred thing between a man and a woman.”
 
TARYN                         I suppose all you have to do is look at the people around you and all the beautiful colours and the depth and breadth of who these people come as, and you leave the judgement at the door when you see two people just wanting to love. And that’s all it’s about. It’s not about judgement. It’s about acceptance and loving those people.
 
SUSAN                         Many people think it’s some sort of social experiment, especially when you bring children into and, and we’ve seen the coroner, in his personal capacity – Gordon Matenga – putting in a submission saying just that: it’s a social experiment, especially when you bring children in it, and until he sees evidence that children aren’t harmed, he doesn’t think it should happen.
 
SASHA                         Well, there is a lot of studies that have actually been done. There's been lots of randomised controlled trials that have been done studying mainly lesbian couples. However, there are some randomised control trials that are now out there between gay dads. And all the psychological evidence actually points to the fact that the children are well adjusted. They’re not any more gay than any other rest of the population.
 
TARYN                         They’re planned as well, so you have to have everything ready for them.
 
SASHA                         Yeah, they’re usually planned, really well-loved children who grow up in an environment where they see love. And that’s going to create good, because people need love. They don’t need—
 
TARYN                         And children aren’t actually the ones that have all these hang-ups. They’re actually the ones who look at love and just see love. They don’t— You know, a lot of children around us, eh, they’re just, “Oh, what's the big deal?”
 
SASHA                         Yeah, yeah.
 
SUSAN                         So, finally, because I’m going to ask Colin Craig in a moment, but to you, just tell me about how emotional and how meaningful a marriage to each other is.
 
TARYN                         I think it’s just so much part of our story, and you look out there at the moment, and there isn’t much representation about gay marriage and things like that or evidence of it. And when you look at that and you see that your story’s not being told, it sends a message that it’s not worth telling. And for us to be able to get married changes that story.
 
SUSAN                         So it makes you feel second-class, to some degree?
 
SASHA                         Yeah, a little bit. Yeah.
 
TARYN                         Yeah, it changes the story going forward. Yeah, it’s really really important to us. I’m madly in love with this person.
 
SUSAN                         Alright, Taryn and Sasha, thank you.
 
ENDS