As today’s my birthday, I thought I’d celebrate by doing something I’ve never done before: posting a video of myself. You’ll see here what I look and sound like.
This is a message to those people that cannot see that recent developments in Australia over marriage equality and LGBTI anti-bullying programs have something to do with homophobia. For some background, read this diary.
Here’s a transcript:
It's getting hard to keep up with all these smears about LGBTI people that have nothing to do with homophobia. We know they have nothing to do with homophobia, because those making the smears keep telling us that, and they are all compassionate people. They are, aren't they?
Yes, the smears are coming exclusively from the traditional values crowd, but only because their ideology - the one that has nothing to do with homophobia - tells them that gay people are immoral and should be mistreated, which has nothing to do with homophobia.It's true that religious fascism is currently proving a massive driving force behind homophobia, discrimination, bullying and suicide, but religious hatred of gay people has no more to do with homophobia than the homophobic murder of Matthew Shepard.None of the disgusting things that conservatives are routinely saying about gay people have anything to do with homophobia. When George Christensen said that the Safe Schools Coalition is about child grooming and sexual predation, you don't seriously think that had anything to do with homophobia, do you? He could have made any argument. He just happened to make that one because it's a homophobic canard. Duh. I mean what are we saying here? That we shouldn't lie about a life-saving program now? Let's keep it real.Of course, if you're making the smears that have nothing to do with you know what, then only one group really matters, and we all know which one that is. It's the group that goes out of its way to make life more difficult for gay people. It's the group whose influence is currently making Australian society more dangerous, less tolerant, less civilized, and less free, while we dance around the maypole and call it tolerance of opinion.But this unprecedented attack on the rights of gay people and cowardly betrayal by Malcolm Turnbull has nothing to do with homophobia, apart from the fact that it has everything to do with it, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with it. Don't be so intolerant.The claim that the children of gay couples are part of another stolen generation has no more to do with homophobia than the claim that Safe Schools is about recruiting children into homosexuality, which stirs up fear and hatred of gay people, because it presents them as a threat to children. Not that that's got anything to do with homophobia, perish the thought.The caller into ABC radio who said that marriage equality would allow pedophiles to gain access to children has nothing to do with homophobia. Nor does the fact that a conservative group actually tried to sabotage a formal held for young gay and transgender couples.The fact that, in 2011, the ACL described schools that gay students safely attend as a homosexual ghetto has nothing to do with homophobia.The emails sent to government MPs about Safe Schools simply described homosexuality as evil and warned that it would destroy civilization. What has that got to do with homophobia?The bashings of four separate gay men this year, just because they were gay, doesn't make it homophobia's fault. Their attackers are not homophobic. That is so intolerant.Let me help you out with a little basic rule of thumb on this. None of the disgusting things that are happening in Australia today, inspired by homophobia, and motivated by hatred of gay people, have anything to do with, and I think you can finish that sentence yourself. If homophobia didn't exist, these things would still be happening. Okay, that's not quite true. They wouldn't be happening. But that's got nothing to do with the fear, animosity and sheer hatred of gay people that conservatives have stirred up in recent times. Besides, they've only stirred it up because those people are gay. And stirring up hatred of people because they were gay has nothing to do with homophobia. I mean, what are we saying here? That hatred of gay people, as proudly admitted to by so many, somehow has something to do with homophobia, of all beliefs?Gay people die 20 years earlier? Yes, that's homophobic, but that doesn't mean it has anything it do with it. And if you say it does, you're being very unhelpful, and you are intolerant. Checkmate.Meanwhile, back in the real world, I think it's a very wise and healthy idea to want nothing to do with homophobia. Although, in fairness, it's just homophobia I want nothing to do with. It's Lyle Shelton, Jim Wallace, Loree Rudd, Margaret Court, Tess Corbett, Bernard Gaynor, and David van Gend, who of course have nothing to do with the anti-gay hatred that has nothing to do with itself.