A Right Royal New Years Message
January 2nd 2010 02:28
Getting Priorities Right in 2010
With state and federal elections on the way, like it or not, politics is going to be important this year. We need to be clear about what we want from our politicians.
There are some law reforms that are a waste of time and energy. Not every ‘pro-gay’ law actually helps, much. Some are not much more than window-dressing. So let’s not waste our scant resources on them.
Hate Speech
Let’s start with so-called ‘hate speech’ laws – making it a crime to say nasty things about us. In the first place, it’s a restriction on free speech, and anything that makes it OK to police what people say about us, paves the way for laws that make it OK to police what we say about others. Bad idea.
There’s no problem with laws that criminalise incitement to violence – that’s why we have those already. But I want the freedom to tell you that the “Catch The Clap Ministries” are a bunch of dangerous loonies – and that means I have to put up with them calling us a bunch of monster raving paedophile perverts. No problem.
That doesn’t make it OK for them to call for burning lesbians at the stake, or for me to call for them to be forcibly lobotomised (not that there’d be much point, it would only be gilding the lily).
The other problem with criminalising hate speech is that "The attempt to gag people plays into the very hands of those we wish to defeat. It allows them to play at being victims, to claim that we are policing what they think," as Simon Fanshawe wrote recently in Attitude magazine Really Long Link . Another very bad idea. This sort of thing is at best, no more than a ‘nice to have’. It can hardly be
Hate Crimes
Ditto so-called ‘hate crime’ laws – the idea that a crime deserves to be punished more harshly if it’s motivated by prejudice or hatred of a specific class, race or other minority. Like hate speech laws, it allows the people we wish to defeat to claim that we are setting ourselves above them, as though bashing a homosexual were somehow worse than bashing a woman, or a child. This is rubbish.
A murder is a murder, a rape is a rape, a bashing is a bashing, and the motives are irrelevant. The crime’s the same no matter why it was done, and the punishment should be the same too.
Hate-speech and hate-crime laws are little more than gesture politics that don’t improve our position more than a micron or two, and even feed ammunition to those who oppose us. They divert time, effort and attention away from things that are really worth doing.
Anti-Discrimination
Another vampire sucking the life-blood out of our efforts towards equality is anti-discrimination legislation. But the problem here is not the principle of the thing, but the practice. Practically all existing anti-discrimination is so hamstrung by the compromises that were necessary to get it passed in the first place that it is next to useless.
Yes, we need legal protection from discrimination. But we need legal protection that works – and the anti-discrimination law we’ve got to date is too weak, too compromised, too expensive, time-consuming and difficult to use to be of much value. It’s heavily weighted in favour of the discriminators – who have the time, the money and the lawyers to easily out-gun a sole complainant. It looks good on paper, but, as anyone who has tried to use the system knows, in practice, it’s a road to despair. Besides which, it’s tackling the wrong end of the process.
It’s too late, once you’ve lost your job, been refused a reference, had your reputation trashed, and are reduced to trying to survive on benefits. You haven’t the time, the energy or the money to put up an effective fight – and the system doesn’t provide you with the matching resources with which to do it.
We need an anti-discrimination system that works to prevent discrimination occurring in the first place. We need anti-discrimination to be part of the national curriculum in every classroom. We need a permanent ongoing government-funded program of workplace education in diversity. We need public service ads on TV and radio.
Without these and similar measures, another layer of anti-discrimination law is likely to be little more than yet another feel-good gesture that allows pollies to point at something they’ve achieved, while hiding the fact that they have yet again avoided doing anything practical that makes a real difference.
Worse, it throws the onus back on us, the people least able to effect change, because we don’t have the moolah. It’s a cheap get-out.
Mental Health, Homelessness & Aged Care
This propensity to get hold of the wrong end of the stick is a hallmark of allegedly ‘progressive’ politics. Take GLBTI mental health.
It’s a well-known fact, and has been for years, that our community suffers higher rates of mental ill-health, self-medication (with drugs and alcohol), self-harm and suicide. Politicians baulk at the huge cost of treating the problem, but ignore the far cheaper option of preventing it arising in the first place.
The root cause is discrimination and homophobia and the resultant isolation, bullying, and lack of support, especially for our young and our senior GLBTI people. And the answer lies not in treating people who are already damaged (although that is needed too), but in preventing the damage from occurring in the first place. It lies in mandating the provision of safe spaces, gay-straight alliances, support programs, education and training, and the like.
The same principle applies to homelessness. Everywhere studies have been done – and, shamefully, not enough of them have been done here in Australia – the stats show a high percentage of young homeless people are same-sex attracted or gender-variant.
The same disproportionately high rates of depression, self-harm and suicide are mirrored at the other end of life. Senior GLBTI people are also unremarked, neglected and underserved.
The right end of the stick
Which takes us neatly back to those nationally mandated and funded programs promoting diversity in every classroom and workplace, those big Health & Safety posters saying “It’s OK To Be Gay” and “Some People Are Gay – Get Over it”, which should be plastered on every canteen and classroom wall, every bus-stop and train station. Until people get the point.
This deals with the source of the problem – lack of understanding and respect for GLBTI people - instead of trying to deal with the consequences. The present approach is, ironically, ass-backwards.
Equal Marriage
I haven’t said anything about marriage. That’s not because I think it’s unimportant – in fact I think it is THE most important issue.
For as long as the state says we cannot marry on exactly the same terms and conditions as heterosexuals, it is saying that we are less than our heterosexual counterparts. That our relationships are inherently less important, less valuable. And that, more than anything else, fuels hatred, discrimination and homophobia. Removing that stigma is vital, and until we do, we will always remain second-class and second-rate in the eyes of the majority.
Remember G A Y = Good As You. Not better, not worse, Just the same. Never forget that.
For as long as politicians go on offering registration schemes, civil unions or partnerships, with or without ceremonies, they are telling us we are not good enough to be full citizens of this country. Worse, they are writing our second-class status into the law of the land. We should throw these insulting patronising pieces of paper back in their faces.
Make no mistake – any politician who refuses to publicly support gay marriage is promoting a degree of apartheid and therefore by definition a homophobe. He or she is saying that we are different, lesser, undeserving, untrustworthy – no matter how much they claim the contrary.
It is no good protesting that they support us in private, that if they buck party discipline and support us publicly they would lose their power and influence, and would not be in a position to help us. What’s the point of keeping them in post, if they persist in being part of the problem instead of part of the solution?
I recently came across a piece of relationship advice which said, “There is no point in wasting time on someone who is not making you a priority, when all you are to them is an option.”
Apply the same test when deciding who to vote for. Unless the candidate is prepared to make gay rights a number one priority – and to say so publicly – they are not worthy of your vote.
Before the election, make sure your sitting member - and his or her opponents – knows of your stance, and why you are taking it. Explain your stance to your parents, children, uncles, aunts, workmates, classmates, employers and employees, and ask them to do likewise.
For them it may just be an add-on, but for us, it’s a priority. Make sure everyone knows it.
Putting Religion In Its Place
And what of the churches? What of their opposition – or at best, ambivalence – on equal marriage?
Let us get something clear. Churches, mosques, temples, synagogues, whatever you got – organised religion has no standing in the marriage debate. The state and the state alone controls, defines and manages marriage, not religious institutions. What they do is weddings, which is a different matter.
It’s been a long time since I went to a wedding, but I have attended dozens down the years, mostly in Anglican churches. And they all follow the same pattern. The bride powers down the aisle, she’s given away, the vows and rings are exchanged etc etc – and then the whole thing comes to a shuddering halt. The principal actors – bride, groom, clergyman, witnesses disappear, and a hitherto unsuspected soprano steps up to sing “Oh Perfect Love”, or the organist indulges himself with a frenzy of Bach, and everyone twiddles their thumbs for a while.
After this curious coitus interruptus the actors troop back on stage and the ceremony proceeds.
If you watch closely you will probably see the priest remove his stole as he exits to the vestry, only to resume it when he returns. This little bit of ecclesiastical strip-tease is intended to symbolise that what he is about to do with the bride and groom in the back room is the state’s business, not God’s. That’s why it takes place offstage, so to speak.
And what are they doing back there? They are signing the register. And that is when the actual marriage takes place. Backstage, with the priest in his official capacity as a representative of the state. Not in Gods house, with the priest acting as God’s representative.
What happens out front is a wedding, and is religion’s business. It has absolutely no legal significance whatsoever. What happens out back is marriage, and that is purely state business. Therefore organised religions are not stakeholders in the marriage debate.
Make Of Our Voices One Voice
Politicians are apt to say that they can’t do what we want, because they don’t know what we want. We don’t put up one national body, one voice to speak for us. We don’t work like that. But government does.
Numerous attempts have been made to create such a dominant voice. The various state-based rights lobbies tried co-ordinating their efforts without much success. The various AIDS Councils and GLBTI health bodies have also tried to do the same. Not much happening there, either, and besides, who wants to be defined in the eyes of the government as a health problem?
Most of the effective politicking these days is done by dedicated individuals with a passion for the work, people like Rodney Croome, Jo Harrison, Gary Burns, Felicity Marlowe, John Kloprogge, Corey Irlam, Shelley Argent and Rob Mitchell, to name a few.
Most of the momentum is with niche groups like Equal Love, Parents & Friends of Lesbians & Gays, and Love Makes a Family. Big umbrella organisations like rights lobbies, AIDS councils and various foundations tend to collapse into self-serving bureaucracies and/or get captured by the governments who fund them. They make fine career paths for homobureaucrats and administrators.
We are not a political party and we will never have a single voice – we are far too diverse. The government doesn’t demand that all religious groups speak with one voice – they acknowledge and deal with Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish etc. voices. This is just an excuse to avoid dealing with us seriously at all.
One Port Of Call
The onus is on the government to create a single GLBTI voice, not on us. To create a one-stop shop to which we can take our concerns and which will represent us to each of the ministries within government. With a whole-of-government remit to monitor, audit and intervene to ensure that our concerns are taken into account and incorporated into all legislation. And to publish their findings every year, showing what has been achieved and what has still to be done.
I do not know whether this could best be achieved though a ministry, a specialist commission and commissioner (I’m suspicious of those as they too tend to become bloated bureaucratic gravy trains), a permanent GLBTI Ombudsman, or what. I’m open to creative suggestion.
New Year Wishes
Finally, may I make a wish or two? I wish Labor would stop telling me I ought to be grateful for everything they’ve done for me. You have made a start, that’s all. You still have a lot to do. Telling me to be grateful makes me want to bite you. Hard. Don’t think I won’t.
I wish the Greens would stop paying us lip service and use their clout to start obstructing Labor legislation to force them to deal with GLBTI issues, like equal marriage. It’s time to put your money where your mouth is, Senator Brown.
We have a lot of work to do in an election year. Make the pollies work, hard and publicly, for our votes. Vote tactically, and/or vote informally to get our message across. Engage with politicians from all parties, not just the ones who make nicey noises at us.
And above all, to all of you who claim to be uninterested in politics, bored with politics, ‘unrepresented’ by your GLBTI advocates, don’t expect a few people to do all the heavy lifting for you. I wish you to get off your butts and do some of it yourselves.
And I wish everyone a Happy New Year.
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