Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Now,
for the plebiscite on the definition of bullying
Readers of this blog may be aware that I
am a gay man, who has long – and consistently, albeit not recently – advocated
the case against gay marriage. A few
months ago, however, I changed my mind.
Six weeks ago, I voted yes, with some reservations. The most interesting part of my journey here,
I think, is how the “No” case has so successfully changed my opinion on this
issue over recent months – and how, just this morning, a ridiculous op-ed from
a “No”-case proponent has convinced me to cast aside my remaining
reservations.
So take a bow, Margaret Court and
Professor Patrick Parkinson (among others) – through your hysterical invocation of the “No”-case proponents
as being bullied victims of the gay lobby, you have showed up the flimsy foundations
of your stance, and so – obviously unintentionally – swung my vote, at least,
to a “Yes”. You have allowed what seems
to be some kind of deep-seated personal insecurity (to put it kindly) to morph
into a pseudo-objective opinion on something that is (to put it politely) none
of your business. Oh, and also perverted
the meaning of the word “bullying”, and its English language cognates.
In today’s op-ed, Professor Parkinson zeroes
in on the case of a man apparently sacked from his job in England for
expressing in public a very mild opposition to gay marriage. I suspect that
there is more to this case than Professor Parkinson grants – but it would be
impossible for me to drill down from afar into the objective truth here, so let’s
take the case study at face value. The
International Gay Lobby has ruthlessly crushed this poor man, Professor Parkinson
seems to imply. And possibly also countless
others? If so, great swathes of these “bullied
victims” are palpably silent. Perhaps Professor
Parkinson’s implication is that they are mostly too afraid to talk.
Gosh, poor dears. As a gay man, I presumably must have had little
lived experience of bullying. Losing one’s
job because of sexuality must be under Professor Parkinson’s logic, a still
rarer thing than being bullied for being a “no”-case proponent. Funnily enough, though, the former has
happened to me – as a law lecturer, albeit quite a while ago. (Conversely and
more recently, my earlier “no”-case public views, did not attract any criticism
that I would call out as unduly harsh). Perhaps
I should be your next international cause celebre/meme, eh Professor Parkinson?
But of course I jest here – my experience
of life-changing discrimination here is no different to the lot of many
millions of other LGTBI+ people in the first-world. And outside the first-world, of course,
things are far worse. I count myself lucky
for never been in serious fear of my life because of my sexuality, but there
have been many unpleasant incidents over three decades, including being spat at
in an outdoor café in central Melbourne, in broad daylight, two years ago, by a
~18 y.o. boy/man – whose ethnic appearance placed him as coming from what from
today can euphemistically be called the “No” suburbs. I was apparently guilty of wearing a
too-tight T-shirt – hence his spit (in my eye) and his yell of “Faggot!” to go
with it. Again, far too everyday an experience
to bother going to the police about; and the café staff just shrugged when I
told them what had just happened (in case they hadn’t seen it for themselves).
In conclusion, go back to your sad lives
in your nice (and no-doubt “Yes”-voting) suburbs, Margaret Court and Professor Parkinson
(and the rest of you). Even after the
big news today about the “Yes” case winning the plebiscite, you can sleep
assured tonight that homophobia is alive and kicking (and spitting) in the
non-Anglo (and especially) non-Anglo and
poor suburbs.
As ever, the rich get the poor to do
their dirty work for them. Ruling-class Anglo
homophobes who seemingly have conscripted an informal army of non-Anglos, and
especially their youth, to be their storm troopers for policing public morality
(and T-shirt sizing) is just the latest twist to the tale.
