Doug PollardGays & Muslims Marriage Alliance?
June 26th 2008 02:55
Keysar Trad, president of the Islamic Friendship Association, backed calls by Sheik Khalil Chami of the Islamic Welfare Centre, for polygamous relationships to be recognized in Australia.
Sheik Chami said there was nothing wrong with having a number of marriages. "You allow the lesbians, you allow the gays - why not these people? What's wrong with it?" he said.
Well actually we don’t allow the lesbians and the gays – we still can’t get married. In fact, the most recent attempt to address our inequality was blocked by the Liberal/National opposition (I should explain that our Liberals are not liberal, in fact, they are more like Tories or Republicans, which is to say, feral).
A bill to give same-sex couples equal treatment in retirement benefits was delayed at least until September, when a whole raft of other equality legislation will also be up for scrutiny.
Fundamentalist Christians and Muslims have been in lockstep in their opposition to same-sex marriage so far. Could this be a crack in the wall?
Now we suddenly have Christians and Muslims at loggerheads over the definition of marriage in our multicultural society.
Because one of the reasons Christians always give for opposing same-sex marriage is that it will lead to polygamy, polyandry (one wife / many husbands), group marriage and so forth.
Could this be an opportunity for the gay community to make common cause with the Muslim community against the Christians, for general reform of the marriage laws?
Sheerest fantasy, of course. I can’t see Muslims supporting same-sex marriage any time soon, and I can’t see gay communities supporting polygamy – at least, not in public. But at the same time, given the way many gay and bisexual relationships are structured in reality, I can’t see why not.
And it does neatly expose the limits of mutliculturalism. "We're not really a multicultural society in that sense," said James Jupp, of the Australian National University. "We privilege one culture, the Western Christian culture, over all others."
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Comment by steve barrett
Since you obviously prefer an "anything goes" libertine set of "lifestyle values," let me run this by you: Since so many (to be polite, "controversial") studies have latel been published demonstrating that one can tell if a child will be a transsexual or gay/lesbian later -- and you support legalized abortion (I'm only being hypothetical here since I haven't read all your posts and I want to give you the benefit of the doubt) -- would you draw a line concerning selective abortions? Meaning, should "straight parents" have the right to selectively abort non-straight babies much in the same fashion that Indians and Chinese are allowed to abort baby girls? Wouldn't that be the ultimate act of legal discrimination against homosexuals: the legal extermination of them in their mothers' wombs?
Maybe that Muslim was trying to get at something many westernized social liberals might never get around to facing. It's called the acceptance of any responsibility for the enormity of their acts and causes they supported.
If it doesn't make a damn bit of difference to you and people who believe as you do, whether it's abortion, infanticide, homosexual "marriages," special civil rights protection given to psychosocial freaks -- it sure does to vast overwhelming rest of western societies that happen to be living normal lives.
As for homosexual "marriage," you'd be surprised at what a flop it's been in Massachusetts, even in the city closest to my town, Northampton, aka "Lesbianville, USA." And the couple who won the case to legalize this travesty and abomination of judicial indiscretion -- if not outright stupidity in action -- they're in the words of a Country and Western song, "going through the Big D -- an' I don't mean Dallas."
Your ideas sure need as much work as that Tasmanian Devil needs obedience training. But at least you picked a good photographic symbol for this post, not to mention what the entire "gay/lesbian/transgendered ... 'rights'" movement means to the rest of us.
Comment by Doug Pollard
Current Affairs
Rainbow Reporter
Regarding abortion, I'm a bloke, so it really hasn't much to do with me, but for what it's worth, I wish it didn't happen.
Unfortunately abortions are going to happen whether I like it or not, so I'd rather it happened legally and safely.
I would also like to see sex education and contraception normalised, much more widely and publicly supplied and subsidised, especially in schools, shopping malls, etc.
Comment by Anonymous
And perhaps the way Yanks and Aussies express themselves in different ways might've led to some misunderstandings. If so, my apologies for my technical transgressions.
But would you please lighten up on the Catholic bashing, and I mean LIGHTEN UP COMPLETELY.
Look, I've known homosexuals who were devout Catholics notwithstanding everything else, and they wouldn't want their religion bashed anymore than than want their sexual behavior criticized in a gratituous manner.
Comment by Doug Pollard
Current Affairs
Rainbow Reporter
Nothing against individual Catholics, I have had three long term relationships, the latest (and hopefully, last) 16 years and counting, and they were all Catholics.
But as to the organsation/hierarchy, sorry, they're fair game.