Doug PollardHow to make straight friends and influence people
November 9th 2008 01:31
Same-sex equality seems to be going backwards even in friendly locations.
Bans on gay marriage, fostering and adoption have passed in several US states, including California. Barack Obama needed to mobilise black and hispanic voters, but most of them are religious and anti-gay. He downplayed his support for gay rights, so they voted against us while voting for him.
A large-scale survey in UK newspaper The Observer found 56% think we shouldn’t be allowed to adopt, 40% want a higher age of consent for us, and 25% think we should be recriminalized. The British Labor government has enacted a lot of pro-gay and anti-discrimination laws in recent years but that hasn’t made people like us.
And at the time of writing, the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Bill is on the brink of defeat. Upper house members say their constituents don’t want gays and lesbians to have parenting rights.
These failures are our own fault. Our small number of committed activists do a great job on politicians and big city elites, but we’ve yet to win over Joe The Plumber and his missus out in Cranbourne or Wodonga.
Californian gay rights campaigners didn’t involve themselves in black and hispanic communities, and we don’t engage with our neighbours in the outer suburbs and the bush. Yet doing so brings multiple benefits.
We need a majority of all voters on our side, and strange as it may seem, that starts with making friends with them. Especially outside major cities, where levels of violence and self-harm are high, and support services for our community are virtually non-existent.
But you don’t turn neighbours to friends by painting yourself as a victim. You do it by helping to solve their problems. As a boss of mine once told me, “If you want promotion, don’t bring me problems. Bring me solutions.”
Country towns, already struggling with drought, now face the strong possibility of a recession. People fear for their jobs, their businesses, their homes. What solutions can we offer?
One proven way is through local rainbow festivals, bringing in publicity and business - and local authorities know it. ChillOut’s economic importance has been acknowledged with a two-year grant of $45k from Rural Development Victoria, in addition to money from Tourism Victoria and Hepburn Shire Council to secure its future. The possibility that Yackandandah Spring Migration might fold has local authorities actually competing to secure the Migration for their town.
Now the gay community becomes a solution, not a problem. Working and socialising alongside gays and lesbians, people learn that we’re ordinary people just like them, trying to keep our heads above water and caring for the ones we love. Prejudice against local gay and lesbian residents is lessened. Young same-sex attracted people learn they are not alone, and can find role models to look up to. And we earn the right to ask people to support us when we seek to be treated equally.
We won’t win them all. But we will win enough to turn mainstream politics in our favour, erode the dam that blocks gay marriage and adoption, and head off any backlash like the one threatening in the UK. On top of which, we get to have a lot of fun.
Who said politics had to be boring?
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