Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011

Truly one of the greatest voices to have contributed to the world has departed it.

Christopher Hitchens died today.

I wrote this blog post about him before I knew he was sick, and I will always refer back to it to remind myself of how it felt to have him on 'our side'.

Thank you, Hitch, for teaching me to notice that which I might have always ignored.

We need to get a couple of things straight...

Meryl Dorey is back on the scene. For those that do not know, she is the president of the Australian Vaccination Network and, though the name would tell you otherwise, advocates an anti-vaccination position for children. She is, more or less, the Australian Jenny McCarthy.

Left: Dorey.  Right: McCarthy.
See the similarity?

This time, Meryl is coming to the Woodford Folk Festival. You can find good summaries of the issue here and here and here, so I won't repeat them ad infinitum. If you're reading this blog, chances are you agree that Meryl Dorey is a big silly idiot and being allowed to speak at a festival like this poses a danger to public health. Agreed? Good. (Not agreed? Comment section is below. Go nuts!)

I need to mention two things really quickly, because the institution of Free Speech is being bashed about the head with a great big misconception stick and I really think we should set a couple of things straight.

The overwhelming Meryl-Supporting reaction in the comments sections of the blogs tackling this issue has been to express that removing Meryl from the program is tantamount to destroying her right to Free Speech. There are lots of reasons why this is not true.

• The Woodford Folk Festival is a private function. The concept of free speech means that the government may not dictate what you say or when you say it, provided it is not an incitement. Within the confines of a private enterprise like this, you may tell people exactly what words may issue from their mouths. In the same way you can set a dress code, you can set a speech code. That's the way it works. Clear?
  
• Free Speech does not mean that you are entitled to a broadcasting platform. You are free to spread your message however you want to, but nobody is obliged to provide you the means by which you spread it. If Meryl Dorey is entitled to a speaking slot at a major festival then so is literally everybody else. Seeing as they haven't offered me the chance to get up and espouse my ever-controversial and dangerous Ron Is Dumbledore theories, I guess that means they don't have to. And it means they don't have to do it for Meryl Dorey, either.
  
• Removing someone from a speaking line up due to overwhelming public outcry is far from a limitation of free speech - it is democratic free speech at its best. The people who wanted Dorey off the program? The way they express this is through the medium of speech, unrestricted by interference. You can't say that Meryl's free speech matters, but the free speech of everyone that wants her gone does not. Once she's off the list of speakers, she's free to voice herself against these people in the same manner that they did. She doesn't need a podium & an appearance fee for it. (Disclaimer: I do not know if Meryl Dorey is going to recieve an appearance fee).

And that is the end of the first thing. If Woodford decided to remove Meryl Dorey from their program, it wouldn't be a violation of free speech. Get it? Got it? Good.

Now, the next thing...

Skeptics, rationalists, parents and all-round good people have been on this. I mean, I have considered making blog posts about it but...did you read those ones I linked to? What could I possibly add? A 900-plus comment thread over at Mamma Mia? So many people have got this covered that talking about it seems almost irrelevant at this point.

But there's one tiny little niggling thing I want to take issue with. When (quite correctly) deflecting the issue away from 'Free Speech' and back to Dorey's dangerous claims, I think some of us are being just a tad short sighted. There are two arguments against this being a Free Speech violation that, I think, have the potential to be more harmful than good.

• Saying that Free Speech is moot in the face of false information - even dangrously false information - isn't quite true. The old "Yelling fire in a crowded theatre" maxim is just so devoid of nuance and foresight that it really is troubling to see it cited so many times by well-intentioned people. Dorey is spreading dangerous misinformation, but the solution to this is the overwhelming application of positive, accurate information - not silencing her altogether. We've already been through why this particular case is not a violation of free speech, but none of us should be willing to admit that, given the chance, we'd have her views edited out of the spectrum.
  
  You can yell fire in a crowded theatre when there is none. Seriously, you can - but people are not going to like it. And when the day comes that there's a real fire, little boy who cried wolf, you're fucked. But consider: if you're going to outlaw yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre, what happens when there actually is a fire and the person who sees it is so terrified of a false alarm that he stays quiet? It's not the right road to go down. Meryl can keep yelling fire all she likes. It's up to us to say, even louder, 'No, actually, there isn't.'

•  Many people have made a point of the fact that Australia has no bill of rights and, hence, no enshrined right to freedom of speech. Quite correct. But my goodness, why on Earth are we making a fuss about that? We have the implied right to free speech and, given our democratic state, I rather fancy that it is a right that we can claim despite its literal absence. I should like to think that, were we to find an instance of the government attempting to silence dissent against the principles of free speech, that we would all be outraged and offended and take action. If Meryl Dorey - yes, even she - were being forcibly silenced, I'd be compelled to speak out on her behalf about the wrongness of the situation.
  
  Taking refuge in the fact that there is no enshrined right to free speech in this country is a dangerous thing. Even though it doesn't apply to this situation, I really don't think it's a good idea to keep bringing it up. The day may easily come that all of us are faced with a legitimate infraction on our right to speak freely, only to have some smug anti-vaxxer turn to us and say 'Oh, but, there's no right to free speech in this country - you said so!'. Don't let it happen. Stop using this one as an answer to people who have free speech concerns. It helps nobody - least of all internet bloggers, commenters and writers.

That's all! Sorry if I was long winded and/or incoherent.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out. I'll post updates here, but they'll likely just be links to people who know better. Until then!

Free Speech: A Boxing Ring, not a Shooting Gallery

This is a re-post of an entry I made in a different blog. I'm posting it here for reference purposes.

Okay, maybe if I say this often enough in enough comments sections of enough blogs and newspapers, it might stick.

A quick precis of the situation I’m referring to: Jim Wallace of the ACL posted some comments on twitter about ANZAC day. He referred to the idea that ANZACs didn’t fight for muslims or gay marriage, asserted this as a fact, and then apologised for ‘the timing’ of what he’d said, claiming he didn’t mean to ‘demean ANZAC day’.

Outrage was swift. Which is great. It came from many quarters, including Christian quarters, which is also great. But where I run into a problem is with the defenders of Mr Wallace claiming something along the lines of the following:

‘Whatever happened to free speech?’

Oh my. Oh my, oh my. Please, follow the jump if you’d like to hear me lecturing on exactly why this is the most juvenile and uneducated argument anyone can make in any argument anywhere, ever.

Bill Muehlenberg made a post about how Political Correctness is a free speech issue. Over here on Chrys’s Gladly, the Cross-Eyed Bear post, you can see a collection of comments opining, “Oh my! What’s this? Jim expresses his opinion and is pilloried for it? What ever happened to FREE SPEECH? Only exists for some, it seems!”

I see where they are getting confused. They are mixing up a free market of ideas and an exchange of free speech with cowardice.

You see, offering your opinion is easy. Anyone can do that. In this modern day, I have offered my opinion on the subject of Jim Wallace of the ACL on about five different platforms. Can I stress that enough? It’s so easy that literally anybody can do it multiple times in an hour.

What is difficult - what is worthwhile, brave and admirable - is defending your opinion once offered.

See:

cow·ard·ice

 [kou-er-dis] –noun lack of courage to face danger, difficulty, opposition, pain, etc.


If you’re willing to face opposition to your point of view, then you are worthy of having it in the first place. Once some opposition is offered, the test of cowardice comes from your willingness to stand by and defend it on its own terms in the face of (yes, sometimes overwhelming) opposition.

So when I see comments that demand ‘whatever happened to free speech?’ crop up in relation to something like Jim Wallace’s disgraceful tweets, I am left dumbfounded. What happened to it?? We are exercising it right now, is what happened to it!

Freedom of Speech is a boxing ring, not a shooting gallery. You trade blows, you give and take. You do not sidle in, camouflaged, take pot shots at sitting targets, and then disappear to the pub. Either you stand ready to defend yourself, or you get immediately knocked out. If that doesn’t suit you, can I suggest that you really shouldn’t be advocating a free speech position.

What these people are trying to do has nothing to do with free speech. They are trying to use free speech like a shield from negative criticism. They seem to be labouring under the impression that if someone disagrees with an opinion, they must remain respectfully silent, which is categorically untrue. What these people are trying to do is play a coward’s game, whereby they can take pot shots at sitting targets free from return fire.

Your opinion is the most precious thing, even if you are Jim Wallace. But you cannot simply declare that it is what it is, and anyone who disagrees is being a big meanie who is trying to bully you. Grow up. By all means, throw down the gauntlet of your opinion! But don’t try to tell me that you won’t get into the ring because there’s other people in there. Those are the words of a coward.

Growing Up Straight v. Growing Up Gay: The Subtle Differences.

People have wondered aloud to me in the past: just how is being gay any different to being straight these days, anyway? Is there any need for all of this activism and whatnot that seems to be going on quite a bit? It's cutting in to the real news, you know, and I desperately want to hear more about what the Kardashians are up to.

Well, perhaps not quite in those words. But there are more than a few people out there who really aren't aware of the subtle little things that make life a bit more bizarre for the average gay man or woman. I'm going to list a few differences here from the point of view of a male because I happen to be one.

 

  

What your typical heterosexual is told by his parents about the topic:

Always practice safe sex, son. You might get a girl pregnant and have to pay child support. Or worse, raise it.

 

What your typical homosexual is told:

Always practice safe sex, son. Or you will die of AIDS.

Spot the difference? Unprotected sex is financial suicide for a straight guy. For a gay guy, it is literally suicide.

Here is a young heterosexual couple showing the level of caution about their open displays of affection that they have been taught by society:

"I hope everyone is watching this so that they can see we are totally in love"

A homosexual couple demonstrating same:

"I sure hope nobody bashes us for this"

Affection awareness is learned in early life and never really overcome for many people. Everything from holding hands upward requires a complete situational analysis before being approved by both parties to said affection.

 

A heterosexual boy approaches a girl in a bar because he finds her attractive. She reacts in the worst possible way:

I cripple your ego with my derisive laughter!

A gay boy tries the same thing with a man he finds attractive. He reacts in the worst possible way:

I cripple you, physically, with violence!

Pick-Up Risk is directly proportional to the establishment you're in and sounds far more promiscuous than it actually is. I'm not talking about trying to crack on to everyone you see, I'm simply talking about tentatively asking someone on a date.Taking a chance on asking out someone you like, in high school, in a bar, at university, in your workplace, anywhere, comes with the risk of a black eye.

This is the one they don't really tell you about as you're going through all the harder stuff mentioned above, but there's something you're getting yourself in to by virtue of the fact that you're gay. You now have a second job.

It looks a little like this:

And this:

And this:

Yes, you now have to work hard to justify yourself to a great many people. It might not be a problem, except that these people are the ones who are in charge of your life. They are government people, and corporate people, and higher-up religious people, and they like things just how they are. Slowly, one begins to realise that things are not right, and need to change. You take up the keyboard, and the placard, and the pen, and you write blogs, you protest, and you sign petitions. All in the hope that, maybe, the people that come after you won't have to do those things.

Being gay is not hard, it is just different. All of the things mentioned here are nobody's fault, per se. They're just things that we have to learn to live with that most other people do not. Changes are happening and need to happen. It's not a fantastic idea, for example, to teach parents that their gay children might as well be playing russian roulette every time they have sex. It's a sad indictment that gay couples feel the need to hide displays of affection above and beyond that which other couples do. It's an almost inextricable trait of the heterosexual male that he is not used to being hit on, and will react undesirably in some circumstances.

Seeing things from the other side of the fence can help with those changes. Hopefully, this will help people understand that gay activists aren't just making a big deal of things that shouldn't be made a big deal of. 'Near Enough' isn't good enough in this particular case.

Equality will come one day. Until then, it's back to the second job.

Tips for Anti-Equal Marriage campaigners

Dear Anti-Equal Marriage proponents: When you insist on arguing against a position that has the overwhleming high ground from a social justice point of view, not to mention majority support from a population, you begin to sound much like this goat.

It's uncanny, really.

So I've got a few tips for you to make this whole equal marriage debate less of a PR nightmare for everyone involved.

• Stop referring the 'Gay Agenda' like it's a thing. Literally everyone knows that there is no such thing as a gay agenda. Repeating it a million times will not make it so, it will only make you sound like a crazy person.

Dramatisation

• Stop pretending that you, personally, have no issue with homosexuals, but are just not convinced of one of the following things: (a) it's the best environment to raise children, (b) it's an important issue when compared to other things like the economy, (c) that the end result doesn't justify the huge job of altering the law, and so on and so forth. Because when you do that, you will invariably use the phrase, 'Look, a lot of my friends are gay! I'm not homophobic!'. This is a falsehood. Allow my friend, Mr Rex, to illustrate just how ludicrous this sounds.

I'm not dinnerphobic!

• You are also not Mrs Lovejoy. Everyone has already thought of the children. The children are fine.
• Most importantly, please stop repeating the problem back to me when I ask why it can't be changed. The conversation winds up going in circles, and nothing is accomplished. Thusly:

Prime Minister! Why do you not support changing the definition of marriage?

"Because I believe the definition of marriage is between a man and a woman."

Okay, but we are asking if we can change that. Please?

"But the definition of marriage is between a man and a woman, so no, we can't change it."

But why can't we?

"We can't change the definition because the definition is between a man and a woman."

There! A few simple tips that will really help raise the level of discourse from nonsensical bleating to something meaningful and constructive. I hope you've found this guide useful, and that you enjoy your newfound ability to converse with your fellow humans.

I, for one, am looking forward to the brave new world of logical debate and sound reasoning informing just social policy decisions.

I'm also looking forward to this.

Bully For Us

It’s come to my attention, courtesy of more than one person(some quite close to me), that my online presence has shifted subtly from beingthat of an atheist secondarily concerned with the issue of marriage equality toa gay man secondarily concerned with that of secularism. I’ll not name thesepeople and am quite convinced they meant nothing by it, but I’ll still take theopportunity, given that this is my own greatly neglected blog space, to deny itas vehemently as I can without – perish the thought – inadvertently coming offas (unduly) confrontational.

The political landscape in Australia, as it stands, is goingthrough a bit of an exciting phase. It’s not up to me to say whether or notthis phase has any legs – suffice to say that I hope it does – but it is, nevertheless, undeniable. Gay marriage,marriage equality, is getting more and more mainstream attention. So muchattention from our National Broadcaster, in fact, that it has earned a new nickname from at least one (although one could assume this implicitly meansmore than one) Liberal MP. Don Randall is not the only one to have noticedthis. Allow me to digress to personal anecdote for just a moment.

I work in a fairly unremarkable industry performing a fairlymenial job with fairly average Australians. That is to say I believe I workwith a decent cross-section of the community that have an interest in politicsequal to, or perhaps slightly above, that of your average Aussie. One of themore communal activities we enjoy is, of a Tuesday morning, deconstructing thematerial discussed during the ABC’s Q&A from the previous night*. I recalla recent conversation with my boss over the final episode of Q&A, duringwhich the topic of gay marriage was raised once again. My boss – a father offour, twice married – lamented that he was quite tired of the issue beingbrought up week in and week out, in his opinion derailing important issues moreworthy of our attention than this ‘no-brainer’, as he puts it (though Istrongly suspect his idea of ‘no-braining’ it is to dismiss the issue out ofhand altogether). It was a personal opinion, not one that I took too personallyor to heart, but it stuck with me. The previous post on this blog, posted somemonths ago now, referred to the irksome argument against gay marriage that goesalong the lines of the following:

I’m sick of this issueconstantly coming up when we could be talking about more important things. Whydon’t gays ever discuss THOSE issues?

I invite you to peruse that post for my response to this weakargument. For the purpose of this post, it will suffice to note that it seemsfor many straight people the issue of gay marriage is more a bother thananything else. It’s that troublesome side-issue that will not go away. Thatpolarising topic that can’t be brought up around a dinner table or water coolerwithout someone getting offended orself-righteous, and as such is best avoided altogether.

The conversation continued. ‘I think,’ my fellow averageAustralian continued, ‘that Tony Jones must be gay. He does, after all, givethe gay marriage issue a lot ofpress. It comes up every week on Q&A and he will not let the issue drop. Ijust get the feeling that he must be gay.’

Fellow average Australian is not quite net-savvy enough tocheck Wikipedia for the definitive answer to his musings. However, his commenthighlights something that I think could be instructive to everyone. What hedid, without realising it, was illustrate the exact reason why the gay marriagedebate does not have a slew of straight allies lining up to speak out on itsbehalf. In a nutshell, he demonstrated exactly how pervasive bullying can be inour everyday, rational, adult lives. He didn’t realise it, I must stress, buthe had just handed any bully looking to tread on the lives and rights of thegay community all the ammunition they need to conduct a standover campaign thathas stunted, and continues to stunt, acceptance and progress right across theworld.

It Gets Better. SortOf.

Anti-Gay bullying has been in the news for quite some timenow. As a direct response to this, Dan Savage launched the invaluable ‘It gets better’ project for gay youth. I made a video for it myself. I’ll not hear anegative word said against it – had I stumbled on a resource like this onYouTube in my youth, things might have turned out differently. I may have beenmore confident, more outspoken, more comfortable. Happier.

But it does fail to address one particular thorn in the gaycommunity’s craw that, as far as I’m aware, is not really dealt with by anybodyin the mainstream media. The fact is that, as much as people like to trumpettheir acceptance (or, as a compromise, their tolerance), and for as much as Ican point people to poll after study after poll that indicates 70-odd percentof Australians are in favour of marriage equality, the bullying that most of uswent through during our school years has never really left us. It’s stillthere, and it’s more subtle, and it’s affecting us in a way that we might notbe properly dealing with.

Straight people, and straight men in particular, arereluctant to declare their support for gay marriage in an open and up-frontway. I have tried to analogise this for others when it comes up in debate, andthe best way I found was to think of it as follows:

Imagine that a poll exists that definitively gauges supportfor gay marriage. There are three options. ‘(a) I support gay marriage’. ‘(b) Iam straight and I support gay marriage’. ‘(c) I do not support gay marriage’.Can any of you envisage a straight male – to a similar extent, a straightfemale – that would be willing to select option ‘a’ over option ‘b’? Unfair,you might claim. The wording is misleading. In fact you might consider that astraight male choosing option ‘b’ was being yet more selfless than he selectingoption ‘a’ by declaring that he has no vested interest in the outcome of thepoll. ‘Though I do not stand to benefit,I support the rights of others’.

But I suspect I know the real reason that they would notselect option ‘a’. I’ve already mentioned it. It is because most people in thiscountry – most average Australians, male andfemale – are terrified of the bullies.

To elaborate:

Recall the assumptions made by my, I must insist, overwhelminglyopen and considerate boss about Tony Jones. A man shows a little support forgay marriage and you can see the suspicion begin to creep in to the thoughts ofthe undecided or unaffected. To the mind of the average Australian, support isnot the default response. It becomes easy and comfortable to rationalise supportaway as being driven by a personal stake. ‘His interest in the topic is sostrong – by virtue of the fact that he holds an interest at all – that he mustsurely be batting for the other team’.

This is not an unusual assumption. Hearsay and personalexperience ought to confirm it enough for any individual reading this, thoughif you are still in doubt I can only refer you to the screenshot posted belowthis paragraph. Adam Bandt is the Greens MP who has brought the issue of gaymarriage to the fore in the last 24 hours of writing this. I just had a feelingthat the question may have been asked before. Call it clairvoyance**.

To voice one’s support of gay marriage without some kind of explicitmandate is immediately assumed to mean that one is of the gay persuasion one’sself. The assumption can be as baseless as those made in regard to Tony Jonesand Adam Bandt – it’s still painting a target on the forehead of the personvoicing their support for the bullies to commence hurling their muck. For astraight man or woman to announce support for gay marriage is to opt-in to thekind of day-in, day-out bullying that gay people are subjected to constantly.And why on earth should a straight person want to do that?

Before I raise too much ire: I am by no means suggestingthat there are zero examples of straight men and women who offer theirunequivocal, wholehearted, unconditional support for gay marriage without carefor the mudslinging they are signing up for. There are innumerable individualsone might point to – Adam Bandt and Tony Jones being but two of them. Nor am Isaying that the support offered by those straight people comfortable enough todeclare their wholehearted but separatesolidarity is meaningless or somehow devalued. I do not think this. Any support for gay marriage is valuable,appreciated, and above all moral. It is not the fault of any heterosexualindividual that bullying of the homosexual community is so steeped intosociety, so casually accepted by legislators and social figureheads, that itmakes them want to distance themselves from it as much as possible.

I am saying, however, that if we do not acknowledge thatthis is a major reason why there is not moresupport for gay marriage from otherwise righteous and upstanding members of thecommunity then we are doing the bullies a favour by allowing them to operateunhindered. We empower these bullies to continue to maintain their desiredstatus quo – that of unequal rights, social injustice and intolerance ofanything different to themselves. I have up until now refrained from identifyingthese bullies and I don’t wish to implicate any one particular group as beingmore responsible than the other. You can assume, however, that I am referringprimarily to groups whose morality is dictated by a higher power and who stillcontrol a sizeable portion of the public discourse of what is right and what iswrong. Churches. Religious lobby groups. You can nominate your favourite anti-gaygroup here and the thrust of the argument will hold up.

Dan Savage was right. It does get better after high school.But the bullying doesn’t so much abate as it goes to ground, shrouds itself inmoral umbrage and demands to be taken seriously. If you still doubt thevalidity of this argument, consider the strong support that gay marriage receivesfrom the atheist and sceptical communities. Why so much stronger the supportfrom these quarters? Quite simply, it is because these people are used todealing with the bullies that presume to dictate to normal people what is andis not acceptable. It’s what they (that is to say, we – I am writing with myatheist hat on here, after all) do.Disapproval from the church or from a group of people less concerned withsecular principles is part and parcel. The bullies, for atheists, are a mostly defangedadversary because their disapproval means nothing.

The same cannot be said for many – dare I say most – averageAustralians. The ones who hear Tony Jones speak out on gay marriage andimmediately assume he must be ‘one of them’. The ones who google ‘is Adam Bandta gay’. The ones who denounce both of those things, but would still make a businessof checking the ‘I’m straight’ box in that imaginary poll so that, if there beany bullies about, they will be shielded from the worst of the thuggish,subversive harassment and discrimination doled out for the gays. Disapprovalfrom friends, family and community has got to be at least one reason why somestraight men are reluctant to be strong supporters of gay marriage. It has gotto be at least one reason why several people have pointed out to me that I’vebeen extremely rabid in pursuing this gay marriage issue recently, whereas mytweets used to be ‘more balanced’. It has got to be one reason why we stillfind ourselves, in 2010, having this argument.

I’m Sorry

Having said all of these things, I do need to apologise if Ihave offended any heterosexual readers who feel I’ve been harsh. I appreciate I’vetaken a strong stance here, perhaps one that could be considered unreasonable.In my defence I can only reiterate my intention in a more succinct way.

I have no wish to demonise, marginalise or dismiss anyheterosexual human being that is willing to offer their support to gay marriagein any capacity whatsoever. Despite my words today, I’ve no expectation thatsupport needs to be all-or-nothing, or that partial support is worthless.Likewise I do not believe that those who do not proudly break forth fromcommunity bullying are somehow cowardly and need to ‘man up’, as it were.People will support – or oppose – the issue of gay marriage in their own way,and I’m not going to presume that I am in a unique position to judge whether ornot they are doing a good enough job.

The only people that deserve to be demonised, marginalised,dismissed, ridiculed and shamed are the bullies that make this kind of thingokay. The bullies that never quite got over high school, that spout their ownversion of morality with the absolute authority of a zealot and foster anenvironment that makes it difficult and, yes, in some cases, impossible for theaverage Australian to support gay marriage as fully as they might like. Myintention here is to point out that these bullies exist and that theirinfluence is far-reaching and very strong. My hope is that if this kind ofbullying can be recognised – if we can spot it, and call it out, and not allowit to dictate how we or those we are close to will respond to incrediblyimportant social issues, we might stand a chance of making it better after all.It might be worth pointing out that Tony Jones is not automatically ahomosexual simply because he has pursued the issue of gay marriage on the ‘GayBC’.

Anti-gay bullying is not fine in high school. On that, weare all agreed. But we’ve a fair distance to go before we eradicate anti-gaybullying out in the big, wide, adult world. Don’t put up with it. You might bestraight, you might be gay, you might be anything in between – the bullying is goingto target you one way or another. Make your high school self proud and stand upfor yourself.

Even better, stand up for someone else.

*  While it was on, obviously. It’s a cryingshame that Q&A should end so early, particularly given the politicalclimate we inevitably find ourselves in the lead up to Christmas every singleyear.

** He isn’t,by the way.

The Two Most Irksome Objections to Gay Marriage That Even Intelligent People Make

Alright, it's been a while since I've posted and this isn't even a real one. I have, however, been bitten by the need to have my say on the building storm surrounding Gay Marriage and the ALP's support of same.

There are two things bothering me about this issue. The first is exemplified by MP Tanya Plibersek in the following article:  http://bit.ly/bQqjIZ  (sorry about the cumbersome link, I'm sending this via my phone email). I am very bothered by a prevailling attitude from the ALP and the public in general that goes along the lines of 'don't you think you should be grateful for what you have? A few years ago you didn't have the rights you do now.' This kind of thinking, almost tantamount to 'God, haven't we done enough for you people?', is an amazing exercise in missing the point.

What Ms Plibersek, and our much-touted atheist PM Julia Gillard, seem to be brushing over is the fact that near enough is not good enough when it comes to human dignity. It is not enough to say 'we are treating you almost like equals. Can't you just be happy with that?'. That's insulting. That's degrading. Yes, equality before the law has improved for the better. But to demand that a community be grateful that their rights were awarded to them only after years of uphill battle is as ignorant as demanding that women be grateful that men let them work in the corporate sector at all, let alone for 70% of the salary.

The gay community demand only the equality and dignity that they deserve. Near enough is not good enough - you don't celebrate a compromise on human rights. You deride it and try to fix it. So before declaring the gay community ungrateful, consider first that no community should EVER have to be grateful for the right to be treated like everyone else.

The other problem I have is one that I come across time and again, and often from very well educated people who really should know better. I can't scare up the link for the ABC Drum article at the moment (damn phone) but will post it shortly. The comments of said article were illuminating indeed, and many more than one of them made the following point:

'All gays ever talk about is gay marriage. Can't they talk about something else, some REAL problem like climate change or asylum seekers or poverty or something that is far more important?'

It flows so easily from the previous argument. The gay community has it pretty good, so why don't they turn their attention somewhere else every so often? The objection to this is so obvious after even only a few second's thought, but rarely are those seconds invested.

We DO turn our attention elsewhere, all the time. We just don't do it under the banner of 'gays for another cause'. Should I have to differentiate myself when I'm placarding, speaking out or blogging as 'A gay for the separation of church and state', or 'I'm a homosexual and I also want to save the whales'? This is the ridiculous logical conclusion to such an objection. Just because gays don't announce themselves as such when supporting another cause does NOT mean that we do not support other causes.

Strangely enough, I have never heard anyone say 'damn breast cancer sufferers! How come they never talk about anything but breast cancer?'. A specific lobby - like the breast cancer awareness lobby, like the gay lobby, like the feminist lobby - will of course keep to their mandate. It is the duty of the gay lobby to lobby for gay issues. It would be head-scratchingly weird to announce that this year's big issue for the gay community is climate change.

So my plea is this: if you're going to get involved in the gay marriage debate, don't swoop in to announce that there are bigger problems and this is not worthy of your time. Fine, if you feel that way - but your precious time would be better spent commenting on those more important things instead of decrying one specific lobby's specific issue as a waste of time.

Gay Marriage is a contentious issue for a lot of people. Differences of opinion will happen. But when even the most intelligent of people think that close enough is good enough, or that the gay community is wasting everyone's time on something they think is trivial, it's hard not to be bothered.

So come on, Tanya. Come on, Julia. If you're going to oppose it, have the hide to oppose it openly. Don't insist that, while you don't support FULL equality, you should at least be congratulated for getting it close enough. You are not civil rights champions. You are obstacles.