Some thoughts on the so-called "equality" of debate on Equal Marriage

I "snapped" yesterday after hearing, while driving to work, a talkback caller say that one of the two good things Hitler did was send gay people to concentrations camps (the other was build the autobahn). I spent a good part of my lunch break writing an email to my nation's Prime Minister - and sent it off via the official Contact Form.Following some discussion with my partner, I've also decided to post it here.

And today I have found that members of religions will be protected from vilification, so I may well use that protection to get on one of the media's "religion and ethics" pages and write an article from a religion that supports Equal Marriage ...

Anyway, here's a copy of the email.

*****

Prime Minister,

One of the aspects of the current "debate" over whether same sex attracted people should have equal access to the social/legal institution of marriage is that it is supposed to be reasonable and equal.

Well, I have had just under six decades of unrelenting, unmitigated and unconscionable abuse from those who oppose the very existence of LGBT people (this goes back to some of my earliest memories), and have fought - viciously, with EXTREME personal vitriol, and unrelentingly - against every single millimetre of movement towards decency for us. I have been physically threatened, had friends bashed, raped and driven to suicide, and lived through discrimination in employment, housing and socially (including workplace social functions). No matter how equal the air time/column centimetres are during the current "debate", it will NEVER be equal, because of the decades (centuries, actually) of abuse we have received from people who are, in my view, bigots - just as those who promote white supremacist views or limitations on women are also bigots.

Their unrelenting resistance to decency - and equal access to the social/legal institution of marriage is but the most recent and currently most obvious step towards decency - bears very obvious parallels to the resistance of some people to treating all races and women and religions equally: in my experience, someone who resists one form of decency is highly likely to be resistant to other forms of decency as well.

I can speculate about why - and claim to right to do so, since so much speculation is given to why we are what our enemies consider to be inherently perverted, and things such as the lack of love shown by the woman who complained - falsely, it seems - about her son being told he could wear a dress to school (does she also think girls should not wear pants? Where do kilts fit in?): she can NEVER claim to genuinely love her son, unlike those parents at, for instance, P-FLAG, who have learned what genuine love is. That woman's attitude is what I call the "mini-me" approach to parenting: they don't want to show unconditional love to a human being who is a unique individual, they want to perpetuate their own combination of insecurities, fears and hates.

I am aware that the current "debate" MAY change some people's views to a more inclusive stance: I'm more inclined to think a debate OUTSIDE the current situation, like the debates that happen at P-FLAG meetings, is more likely to change hearts and minds for the better. More importantly, the current "debate" has emboldened some people to come out into the open - people like the neo-Nazis who have been drilling in rural Victoria, or the caller to Radio National 774's morning talk back programme this morning who advocated for gay people to be sent to concentration camps (and led me to reach the point of despair where I decided to write to you).

Those views are NOT unknown to us - we live with them, and have done so for decades: it is only the profoundly naïve who think they do not exist.

I have also lived with this emboldenment before: when equal access to the social/legal institution of marriage was banned, I lived with the INCREASE in abuse that occurred in my workplace. I lived with the increased fear of people in my family - I had a step daughter (why do the bigots who oppose decency never think of people hiding their sexuality because of discrimination, and thus having children when they leave heterosexual relationships?) who was TERRIFIED that the relationship of her mother and I had somehow become illegal.

Granting equal access to the social/legal institution of marriage, IF that occurs, will go some way to mitigating the endemic abuse we have had to live with (and will provide a PARTIAL redress for wrong done to us by, and subsequently in the name of, the ban on equal access to the social/legal institution of marriage), particularly by influencing those people who are inclined towards being reasonable - but it will have limited effect on those who are irredeemable bigots.

Leaving aside for the moment the issue of those Members who have indicated that they will be liable to a label akin to that of the US term "faithless elector" by ignoring any vote for "yes" (I have already begun thinking of such people as "faithless Representatives" - and, having had the misfortune of living in central Queensland for a dozen years, including my teenage years, am not surprised that such "Representatives" have been elected by some places), what, Prime Minister, are you going to do about the haters? What are you going to do about those who, some emboldened to reveal themselves now, others who will simply continue with their at times murderous rampages more privately, continue to hate people who are different? (Have you looked at police hate crime statistics yet?)

As a final point, the issue of "religious freedom" has been raised: there are religions, including my (not mainstream) religion AND SOME CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS, that support equal access to the social/legal institution of marriage. Any "Christian" (and I was raised as a Christian, so have some knowledge of that religion) who claims that their religion opposes equal access to the social/legal institution of marriage does not know what they're talking about, as Christ's message was one of love.

(Note: if you reply, please do so by email.)

Yours sincerely

(name and address)

The real dividing line is not between Christianity and Islam, Sunni and Shia, East and West. It is between people who believe in coexistence, and those who don’t. TOM FLETCHER, FORMER UK AMBASSADOR TO LEBANON
We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Human dignity is the inherently cumulative holistic combination of human rights, wellbeing and potential, and all actions or interaction which promote, realise or facilitate same. The converse also applies: whatever degrades, diminishes or robs humans of dignity, is inherently undignified. GNWMYTHR

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction. JOHN F. KENNEDY

We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY