Doug PollardWe're so grateful - not!
August 4th 2009 04:10
I finally got my hands on some transcripts of ALP conference speeches, so I can dispense with the sleeping pills for a while.
But one little doozey had me bolting back to the laptop in rage.
“I should specifically place on the record that I have absolutely no doubt, as you would appreciate, that the anti-discrimination reforms that have been passed by the Federal Parliament would not have been achieved without the support of Australia’s faith-based communities. The support of Australia’s faith-based communities . . . . . . was based on those reforms not undermining the institution of marriage.” Attorney General Robert McClelland.
I am sick to death of being told to be grateful to the Labor government for what they have done for us. How dare they suggest we ought to be grateful to the pseduo-Christians, too.
We have been monumentally patient while Labor has lumbered through the complex, cumbersome procedure of painfully identifying and amending each and every piece of legislation that treated our families unfairly. What a mammoth task. What a total waste of time and effort in the midst of a global financial crisis.
Only one piece of legislation – the Marriage Act – really needed amendment, and that is more in the nature of cosmetic surgery to remove Howards carbuncle from it’s otherwise acceptable face.
We gritted our teeth on being told ‘tough’, when we complained that the changes to social security weren’t being grandfathered and would hurt some of the most vulnerable members of our community.
Now we’re being told we ought to be thankful to the self-righteous minority who keep shoving us and the administration through these unnecessary hoops -
Enough is enough. I no longer care if these smug, superior, moralising individuals are offended. Let me lay it on the line on behalf of people like me and those who came before me.
Within living memory – within my memory - gay people were driven mad by psychological and physical tortures inflicted by the medical profession in the name of a cure.
Aversion therapy delivered painful electric shocks whenever the patient showed signs of an attraction to a member of their own sex.
Gay people were driven mad, drugged, given electro-shock therapy, confined in mental hospitals, basically because they were gay.
Some were castrated, chemically or physically.
Many were separated from their spouses, children, and communities. Thrown out of work, expelled from the armed forces, jailed, ruined, cast into poverty – simply for being gay.
When they were assaulted on the streets, people turned a blind eye. Police mysteriously failed to find their attackers. Courts accepted flimsy defences.
“He made a sexual advance by putting his hand on my knee, so I bashed him to death.”
“Oh you poor thing. Fined five pounds.”
Just as this monstrous tide was abating, AIDS arrived, and with it, the bigotry returned full force. Medical help was denied. People were left to die untended. “Serves you right, you brought it on yourself,” was the attitude.
Although many did show great compassion, many others did not. Time and again, comfort and care was not offered, but rather, had to be wrenched from fearful, grudging and judgemental hands.
Slowly, and at great personal cost, we have begun to drag ourselves out from under this great and ancient weight of persecution. We are now being accepted by a slim majority of the population.
And through all this, our greatest persecutors, our most fervent tormentors, have been those Pharisees, those whited sepulchres, that smug totalitarian minority of ‘Christians’ (and other religions) who – and let us be clear about this – have always viscerally loathed us and still do, despite all their hypocritical posturing about ‘loving the sinner.’
And now the Attorney-General, no less, asks us to pass a vote of thanks for their generosity and condescension. Pardon me while I puke.
Life for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trangenders and intersex people has improved a lot in recent times. Not enough, but a lot.
But this has not been ‘given’ or ‘granted’ by anyone. It has been wrestled out of unwilling hands by honest, brave and forthright people – not all of them gay – who have been strong enough, and fortunate enough, to be able to take a stand. It owes less than nothing to these people we are now being asked to thank.
We have begun to gain a measure of respect and equality, but the context of the horrors of what has been inflicted on us in the past must be acknowledged. You, the majority still have a huge distance to travel to mend your fences with us. If you want to know what tolerance truly is, we are the tolerant ones, not you.
We have found our pride, and that is good. That is why we do not rub your noses in your guilt, or call for compensation for past wrongs. We do not ask for restitution for the persecution we have endured and, especially in rural areas, continue to endure. We do not expect a Sorry Day.
But we would take it very kindly if you would cut the condescending crap and instead politely ask what else still needs to be done.
And there is much. A random sample. There is AIDS still to be fought. Homelessness among gay and lesbian youth . Proper aged care for our seniors. An epidemic of depression and self harm, especially among the young, the elderly, and the transgendered. Not to mention the little matter of equal rights and respect for our relationships, on exactly the same terms as your.
Did you not know that G.A.Y. stands for Good As You?
Yet we must still bust a gut to even get these issues on your agenda. It’s time that changed. It’s time you came asking us what you can do to put things right. You’ll be amazed at the love that’s waiting for you, if you only do the right thing.
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