Yesterday Abbey wrote her first letter to the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, and true to her word, my 8-year-old niece has written her second letter.
To Tony Abbott
I would like my uncles to be able to get
married in Australia.
Gay marriage is no different to
any other marriage because its only
about love and nothing else.
I would like the law changed
from
Abbey
Age 8
Thanks Abbey. It is people like you who help change the world!
In my large family I have a lot of nephews and nieces. Some are into their forties and the youngest is 8 years old.
I love spending time with Abbey and with her sister. They’re great fun to be around. We play together and explore the world from an 8 year old’s perspective. We have lots of room for moose and treat them nicely. They are always appearing and quickly disappearing.
She’s home sick today, and after coming to Michael and my wedding in New Zealand earlier in the year, she’s been wondering why we can’t get married in Australia. I’m reliably informed that she has some questions for me and that she is learning how changes are made.
How awesome is it that a child can understand the inequality in our society and also work out how change can be started. From her heart comes her plea and her question to the Prime Minister of Australia.
My niece is awesome! Thanks Abbey.
Here’s her letter to the PM.
To Tony Abbott
my name is Abbey and I am 8 years old.
My unkls are gaye and we had to go to
New Zeland to have ther wedding it is going
To be on TV it’s called Living with the Enemy they
wont to get marred in Astralea but thats eligle
I will write to you once a day for a week.
P.S. I wold like the law changed.
Read her 2nd letter and her 3rd letter. Letter 4 Letter 5 Letter 6 Letter 7
Dr David van Gend is a family doctor from Toowoomba. He’s also the president of a group called Australian Marriage Forum. He’s written an open letter to the Australian Education Minister, Christopher Pyne. Van Gend is asking that Pyne reconsiders the decision to fund the Safe Schools program throughout Australia and goes on to quote a range of studies and provide information. I understand that he is talking about Safe Schools Coalition Australia (SSCA), which the government is funding. The program forms part of the National Safe Schools Framework and specifically the SSCA program is about creating safe and supportive school environments for same-sex attracted, intersex and gender diverse people by reducing homophobic and transphobic bullying and discrimination in schools. I note that it’s about reducing and not eliminating. The National Safe Schools Framework is described as providing Australian schools with a vision and a set of guiding principles that assist school communities to develop positive and practical student safety and well-being policies. A very noble cause indeed, and a clear recognition that bullying of students needs to be addressed, no matter what the cause. Reading van Gend’s letter isn’t much fun. It’s the normal anti-gay stuff that I’ve seen a thousand times. I’ve picked some of his more outrageous bits to think about:
The political justification for ‘Safe Schools’ programmes, or the associated ‘Gay-Straight Alliances’, is that there is a plague of gay-based bullying in our schools, and the only way to counter that is through celebrating homosexuality. That justification, however, is doubtful.
It’s not clear that there is a plague of gay-based bullying in schools, but the Growing Up Queer report released in February 2014 is reported in The Age (7/2/14):
A disturbing two-thirds of non-heterosexual young Australians have been bullied about their sexual orientation, according to a new report that reveals widespread homophobic harassment and violence in schools, at home, work and at sporting events. The Growing Up Queer report, to be released on Friday, also found 16 per cent of respondents had attempted suicide and 33 per cent had harmed themselves largely due to homophobic harassment – mostly verbal among students and, in some instances, teachers.
This is a current research paper with relevant Australian data based on a sample of 1,000 people. The figures are disturbing and certainly not worthy of the being equalled to something of a plague. If two-thirds of young gay people are being bullied then we need to address it. Van Gend goes on to quote a UK study, also of 1,000 people. However, he attempts to use this study to minimise the impact of bullying on gay people.
In one large study comparing a thousand homosexual and heterosexual adults in the UK, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2003, the researchers found no increase in bullying of gay men compared to heterosexual men, whether at school or subsequently, whether verbally or physically. “Reports that gay and lesbian people are vulnerable to such experiences because of their sexuality are often taken at face value”, these researchers noted, with other studies failing to draw a comparison to heterosexual students. In other words, there are many reasons to be bullied at school – for being too smart, too dumb; too fat, too weak; or for being “gay” even when you are not gay. A report in the news only last week finds one-third of 10-year-olds in Australia report being bullied for various reasons. That is something many young people go through, and the claim that homosexual people suffer disproportionate bullying appears to be “taken at face value”.
He omits the following sentence from the report:
Bullying at school was reported no more often in gay than heterosexual men, but the gay men who had been bullied regarded their sexual orientation as the main provocation. Gay and lesbian participants were more likely than heterosexual participants to have consulted a mental health professional in the past, regardless of current mental state.
It is quite telling that he cherry-picks his information to support his contention. He uses a study that is over 10 years old, well before marriage equality was a reality in the UK. There are plenty of recent studies around, it doesn’t take much to find them. Van Gend then moves the subject from school bullying to illicit drug use by gay people. He seems to be suggesting from a 2010 report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare that somehow gay people are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, but I’m not sure of the connection to bullying, nor does he really identifying why he is making that link. A quick review of the 2013 AIHW report shows a decrease in the use of alcohol, specifically fewer 12–17 year olds are drinking alcohol and the proportion abstaining from alcohol increased significantly between 2010 and 2013 (from 64% to 72%). The misuse of alcohol and drugs is always disturbing, and van Gend is suggesting that it’s because gay people can’t cope and they turn to alcohol, when heterosexuals don’t cope perhaps they resort to letter writing instead of alcohol. Van Gend then makes some observations from his profession:
From my observations as a family doctor, the pressures that depress a young gay man are more intrinsic than extrinsic: the sense that something has gone wrong deep inside; the depressing and degrading effect of his compulsive sexual encounters; the unresolved anger at what he sees to be the cause of his sexual confusion, such as childhood abuse by a male.
I’m not sure about his qualifications, if he’s just a family doctor I hope that he is referring these young gay men to appropriate support. I’d suggest with his reputation as a conservative doctor, that the only young gay men who visit him are taught from their religious background that something is wrong. Van Gend is unlikely to reassure them that everything is ok or that they are normal. He also then assumes that his patient is having compulsive sexual encounters and that he was abused by a man during his childhood. None of which he supports. No indication of numbers or resolutions. He then states:
It trivialises a homosexual person’s suffering to blame it primarily on the external environment – or alleged excess of bullying at schools. There are less insidious means to address the perennial problem of bullying — for all students — than by normalising homosexual behaviour in the curriculum.
There seems little room for doubt about the impact of bullying. Homosexual people have no need to suffer. It has been concisely demonstrated in the Growing Up Queer report that external factors do impact on the well-being of gay people. We as a society should make every effort to minimise suffering for all of our citizens, not just those that he would classify as ‘normal’. He then uses information from The American College of Pediatricians, he acknowledges that they are a conservative medical group and claims that they are represented across 47 states. He neglects to tell us that their membership is about 100 professionals and that they are a break-away group from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). They broke away after the AAP supported gay adoption. Interestingly the AAP has around 60,000 members. So, who are you going to trust? Van Gend then sets about suggesting that when left alone, young men will turn out heterosexual. He considers homosexual feelings to be some type of confusion. He’s suggesting that it’s just a phase that young men go through. Finally, after taking us through the standard rhetoric of what makes someone like me gay and how I shouldn’t be treated as a normal citizen he then talks about HIV and venereal disease. As if this is the singular most important reason why we shouldn’t treat gay people as normal, because it’s bad for our health:
Even using the simplest, most objective measure of harm – the burden of venereal disease (and in Australia it remains the case now, as for the last 25 years, that around 85 percent of new cases of HIV/AIDS are in “men who have sex with men”) – it is obviously harmful to lock a young man into a lifestyle that he might have avoided, were it not for the assertion of homosexual normalcy, by programmes such as ‘Safe Schools’.
It’s so easy to carry that ‘warning’. No doubt he still thinks that heterosexual people only have sex after they are married and then only have sex with one person. He clearly demonstrates the need to educate young people about safe sex. His method of abstinence has never worked. History is full of tales of sex outside marriage. We used to call those children bastards. I don’t understand this concept of locking someone into a lifestyle. He is referring to the gay lifestyle, of course. Sexuality is not something that you can pick. Sure, there are some that don’t fit the mould of one or the other, but generally speaking once you’re happy with your life, why would you need to change? The sort of lifestyle he is talking about is one I know well. Pretending to be heterosexual. There is a lot of pain in denial. My advice is to avoid it at all costs. Van Gend also cherry picks the ‘venereal disease’ information. I’m not sure of the percentage of men who have HIV in Australia. However, he ignores the bigger picture. 50% of those with HIV worldwide are women. Over 35 million people have died from AIDS related illness. To suggest that we can make HIV/AIDS disappear by asserting that homosexuality isn’t normal is short-sighted and shows a complete disregard for the reality of our world. Quite frankly it’s disturbing to have a family doctor practising with such a limited view of sexuality. I’d be so bold as to suggest it’s just outright dangerous. Van Gend is perfectly entitled to express his opinions but when he takes those opinions into the public sphere and uses his profession as a way to lend it credibility then he needs to be scrutinized and held to account. The one thing missing from van Gend’s letter is his motivation. Considering his faith background he is very likely catholic and still of the opinion that gay people are disordered and an abomination. While he might not actually stone people like me to death, he probably thinks that his god was on to something with that idea. 
I have been hearing my voice booming around my home as I watch the TV for an upcoming documentary.
Stop using the rules of your religion to tell me how to live my life
The constant theme I hear from people about why I can’t get in married in Australia is mostly based on their religious view that homosexuality is an abomination. The attitude from religious fundamentalist is the reason that we don’t yet have marriage equality in Australia.
There is a shift going on, slowly but surely. I read this article in the Washington Post from a Christian who believes that marriage is between one man and one woman. David Jolly is a conservative politician, but he gets it:
I believe in a form of limited government that protects personal liberty. To me, that means that the sanctity of one’s marriage should be defined by their faith and by their church, not by their state. Accordingly, I believe it is fully appropriate for a state to recognize both traditional marriage as well as same-sex marriage.
My request is simple and can be echoed by everyone who agrees that personal liberty is important.
Stop using the rules of your religion to tell me how to live my life.
The other objection that I hear a lot is along the lines of ‘think of the children’ and the use of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which states (amongst a lot of other things that are often ignored)
…the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.
It’s interesting to note the use of the word parents here is left undefined. It’s also interesting to note that The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
It’s right up there at the top – Article 1.
So get out of my way and let me marry him.
It’s no secret that I’m in a wonderful relationship. I tell everyone at every opportunity. I struggled for ways to show Michael how important he was to me. I couldn’t find that one thing needed to express my love for him, then I asked him to marry me. He said yes.
Marriage is an important milestone for us. We can’t do it in Australia. Fundamentally we aren’t really changing anything about our relationship, we are simply publicly expressing the importance of our lives together.
So when I yet again read something from the Australian Christian Lobby that attempts to undermine my relationship with Michael I get a bit upset. Not just for me but for others who so desperately want to get married.
Lyle Shelton is the Managing Director of the ACL and he writes:
But the Greens, who cite changing the definition of marriage as one of their top priorities (along with euthanasia), are chipping away.
Recently they set up a Senate inquiry into a bill to recognise same-sex marriages conducted overseas.
This is clearly a tactic to put pressure on parliamentarians as part of the Greens’ misguided assault on the rights of children to have their mum and dad, wherever possible.
Whether or not you think the Greens are misguided is a political judgement, they are doing what they should be doing in a democratically elected parliament, attempting to represent those that voted for them. However, to suggest that somehow marriage equality is an assault on the rights of children is just insane. This notion that somehow allowing Michael and me to get married will mean that kids won’t have a mother and father is madness.
The truth is there is no discrimination against same-sex couples in Australia. Keeping marriage between a man and a woman does not change this.
Well, lets test that, I assume Lyle is straight and married to a woman. I assume that they love each other and the reason that they got married is because they love each other. Lyle has married the person of his choice. I love Michael. I want to marry him. Michael is my choice for the person I want to marry. Yet, I’m not permitted under Australian law to do so. Why not? It’s because we are both men. That, to me, sounds like discrimination. Feels like it too.
But if Australia capitulates on the definition of marriage, our cultural assumption that a child has the right – wherever possible – to her or his biological mother and father, will be lost.
What is it with these guys that they continually place children as the central reason for marriage ignoring all those who decide to either have children out-of-wedlock or not have children at all. There is no requirement to have children as part of a marriage and there is no requirement to be married to have children. And just once it’d be great to see Lyle show us just where this right that apparently is a cultural assumption is written down.
A civil and unselfish society puts the rights of children first, no matter how emotive the arguments against this are.
I don’t know which society you live in Lyle, but our society is very selfish. Sure, there are lots of great things happening and lots of selfless people about, but really, there are poor, hungry, homeless children living amongst us. You could be working with those families that need support instead of picking on the gays. The unsaid thing here, however, is this notion that somehow gay people have children as some sort of trophy or possession. That we only want children so we can somehow show them off. Nothing is further from the truth. Every parent I’ve met, regardless of their sexuality, is a selfless parent who would do anything for their children. Just because you’re gay doesn’t stop that fundamental biological urge to have children and raise them as your own. It’s part of being human, and mostly our sexuality doesn’t diminish that drive any more than the rest of the population. That same basic instinct is the same that drives straight couples to start families.
It’s easy to over look the role that Lyle Shelton as the Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby plays in this debate. We need to be taking that into account in all their lobbying. Although Lyle makes no mention of it, religion is the driving factor here. He pretends that it’s about the children, because for the ACL that’s the emotive argument. The way they continue to justify their discrimination is to pretend that it’s not biblically based. The reality is that the ACL is about forcing their version of Christian ethics on the rest of the population. Their ethics are orthodox Christian values. They believe that gay people are sinners, the work of demons and just plain evil. The Chairman of the ACL, Tony McLellan said this in a report on Lateline in 2012:
TONY MCLELLAN: It’s against the kingdom of God by the Devil. The Devil doesn’t like God and doesn’t like everything God stands for. I would say that people who are trying to change the definition of marriage, which has its roots in Christianity, are obviously trying to deconstruct Christian’s views of what marriage should be. And they well may be motivated by the evil one to do that.
No doubt there are plenty of reasons to deconstruct Christian views in our society. The churches have used and abused their position when it comes to the well-being of children. Reality is that religion isn’t going away any time soon. But then neither am I. Nor are the hundreds of thousands of gay Australians and our supporters.
The ACL ha
ve tried to shift this ‘war’ to the well-being of the children. For generations children have been raised in a variety of ways, through mothers only, through villages, through dads only, with the use of wet-nurses, adopted parents, orphanages and with both parents. There should be no doubt in your mind that no matter what happens to marriage, people will continue to breed and raise the off-spring. The way forward is not to tell us who can and can’t do it, but to support those who want to be parents. As a society that is surely the way to do it.
The ACL in shifting the debate is being dishonest and disingenuous. At the root of all their rhetoric only one thing matters to them, bringing about the kingdom of their god. They honestly believe that it is their duty to push their ethics onto the rest of society because they think they’re right. If we don’t agree with them we are deemed to be a demon, be influenced by a demon or just plain evil.
We don’t hear that sort of talk from them, it’s not going to win them any support. The last thing that the ACL really cares about is your children, or the rights of the children. They only care about their faith. Nothing else matters.
How selfish of them.
——
You can voice your support for marriage equality by making a submission to the Senate Inquiry for the Recognition of Foreign Marriages Bill 2014 at the website for Australian Marriage Equality.
Join the Australian Equality Party, a new voice in Australian politics that aims to promote fairness, equality and human rights.
Lyle Shelton is the Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby and he’s just written a rather nasty little piece about gay people. Again. He’s trying to be reasoned but ignores the reality of the world, as so many fundamentalist christians do.
Even the heading of his little spray is really very mean-spirited and sets the tone for the rest of the article.
Deep breath needed in rush to dismiss mum and dad parenting
Nobody but nobody is trying to dismiss mum and dad parenting. Gay people having children doesn’t mean that somehow all the other children in the world will find themselves without a parent. Lyle needs to take a deep breath.
Children miss out on a mum or a dad usually because of tragedy or desertion.
Where this occurs we as a society rightly provide financial and moral support to single parents.
Where children are orphaned the State usually seeks to provide a mother and father replacement family through adoption.
In all cases, the best interests of the child are paramount.
Hardly. Single parents are very often left to struggle. Poverty for these groups is rife. Financial support is very limited. For an organisation that bangs on about the importance of what’s in the best interest of the children do very little to acknowledge that what is important is that all families should be at the gold standard. That should be what they strive for, not this fancy notion of moral support.
We have also rightly condemned and apologised for practices that led to the stolen generation and forced adoption practices of the past.
Here’s another nasty bit of text. What Lyle isn’t saying is that often said rot that allowing same-sex parents to have children is akin to forcibly taking the child away from her parents. Forcibly being the key word. No child in a same-sex relationship is being forcibly removed. Lyle is warning you that if we allow people like me to have children, in thirty years time we’ll have to apologise to those children for screwing up their lives. The stolen generation does not even begin to compare with same-sex parenting.
The recent debate about same-sex marriage has highlighted the issue of parenting by same-sex couples.
Hang on, so far you’ve talked about single parents and the children of the first Australians. Now we jump into same-sex couples. Whether the likes of Lyle know or understand, same-sex couples have been raising children since the start of time and the world continues to spin. Marriage will not change that fact.
A number of studies have been conducted which seem to suggest that kids raised by same-sex couples fare no worse and possibly even fare better than kids raised by heterosexual parents.
Well no, the studies don’t seem to suggest. The studies state that the kids are ok.
The most recent, a survey of existing studies from here and overseas, was conducted by sociologist Dr Deborah Dempsey on behalf of the Australian Institute of Family Studies.
A key message of Dr Dempsey’s survey is that: “Overall, research to date considerably challenges the point of view that same-sex parented families are harmful to children. Children in such families do as well emotionally, socially and educationally as their peers from heterosexual families.”
The same-sex marriage lobby was quick to say that Dr Dempsey’s survey of the studies means the debate about same-sex parenting is over.
However, it is known that data for most of these studies has come from self-selecting samples and mainly from lesbians from a higher than average socio-economic demographic.
Oh no, all these studies have been done from self-selecting samples. Let’s ignore that study after study finds the same thing that the children are OK. It’s a pity that Lyle didn’t apply the same logic to the studies that he relies on, studies that have been debunked by so many people.
Lesbian parents who have high incomes and are well-educated unsurprisingly report that their kids are doing well and they most likely are.
How dare the lesbians have high incomes! How dare the lesbians be well-educated. With that statement it should be obvious to Lyle that he should be encouraging decent educational outcomes for all citizens regardless of their sexuality.
While increasing, the numbers of same-sex couples parenting children remain very small. Dr Dempsey says 33 per cent of lesbian women in Australia have children and 11 per cent of homosexual men have children.
Around two percent of the Australian population is homosexual or lesbian but not all are in couple relationships.
With such small numbers, particularly for male homosexual parenting, it is perhaps too early to be drawing conclusions.
Indeed, it’s too early to draw conclusions, but you do anyway. You are suggesting that it’s better to tell gay people not to have children, just in case they screw their kids up. Again, the same standard is not applied to the children of people who aren’t as well-educated and earn high incomes just like those lesbians that are raising well-adjusted kids.
The overwhelming conclusion of the vast body of social science research is that kids do best when raised by their biological mother and father.
Except for the research that hasn’t been conducted by some christian funded organisation or doesn’t properly reflect the GLBTIQ community, or research that has serious flaws in its methodology.
Common sense and the evidence of past practices of child removal tell us that a child’s biological parents matter to the child, regardless of the love provided in alternative arrangements.
Yes two men can love a baby, but is it right to have removed that baby from her mother?
Are fathers an optional extra?
Common sense? It’s a pity Lyle doesn’t use some. You see the thinking of christian fundamentalists is along these lines.
1. The bible says that gay people are an abomination.
2. Being gay is a sin
3. Sin is from the devil
4. Therefore all gay people are evil and either want to eat your children or raise them to be gay or raise them to fail in life.
5. If you disagree refer to 1.
These are important ethical questions that should be front and centre of the debate about redefining marriage.
Oh please, nobody is redefining marriage. People will still get married, some will have children, some won’t. Some people will have children and not get married.
Once a new definition of marriage is legislated, these questions become obsolete. In fact, they become inappropriate.
As usual with a media release, we get broad statements with little about the driving motivation. The ACL and Lyle have no time for anything that is gay and would like to wipe it off the face of the earth because jesus loves us all. These discussions are inappropriate now. Instead of trying to support all families, Lyle and the ACL focuses on a small section of the community and run around screaming that the gays are having children! Won’t anyone listen to them!
Not normally one for pondering the year that has been, I find myself doing just that. Although, I’m pondering a lot more than just the last 12 months.
In the short-term I find myself in a state of bewilderment. You see, I work with a small team of people at work and one of them was killed just before Christmas. Her husband has been charged with homicide, and I just can’t find a spot in my mind where that makes sense. The impact has been enormous and I’ve struggled to make sense of it. At the same time I’ve had to give support, space and understanding to others, something that I’ve done quite willingly. I can feel that part of me that needs to be busy in a crisis. I work where I do because the people I work with do great work in a range of areas, including family violence. I’ve seen reports, heard the stories and know that violence happens. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand why some men think this is a way to solve a problem. I want this to stop. When it touches you so close to home it becomes real, not just something you read about or see on the TV.
The last couple of years has also been sad with other deaths, my sister, my mother and earlier this year my father. It’s been a tough time. The thoughts of them intrude frequently as I remember, recall and see them in my mind. I have the photos, videos and memories of these people. Despite everything, they are treasured memories.
The death of my parents in particular has been a relief too. My greatest fear was being rejected by my parents. Now without that worry I really do finally feel free. How bad is that I wonder. A 50-year-old gay man still fearful of what his dad thinks. I’ll tell you what he thinks, he thinks that I’m a woolly woofter.
When it comes to the emotions of life, common sense has little to do with it. In all likelihood my sexuality would probably not have been a concern to them at all. Possibly they would be too polite to actually say anything about it. Reality says two things – I’ll never know what they thought, and it no longer matters.
So, I have a new-found freedom. This new-found freedom helped me one night in Bali to look into the eyes of my beautiful man and ask him to marry me. He, with a tear in his eye, said yes. Who’s the woolly woofter now?
He comes with a pre-arranged family, parents who accept and love him for who he is, a brother, sister-in-law, a niece and nephew, aunty, cousins and friends who just don’t give a single low-flying duck about his sexuality, oh, and they also love him. I’ve been accepted into the fold and have the deep sense of the family madness that comes with that. I have to say, that’s wonderful. Oh, they’re not really mad either, my lot has the madness refined to a much better level of insanity.
The last two years have also been an incredible deep personal journey for me too. I’ve grown so much on the inside, mentally. For years my brain has been a muddle. I fully expect that to continue. However, some of it has become unmuddled. This release has seen me lose well over 30 kgs., and go from sitting on my arse to actually running, I did a 8 kilometre run this morning. It’s also seen me grow into a new work role that quite frankly surprised me, I managed to achieve a Diploma in IT and quell the side of my personality that was up for a fight, mentally that is, not physically, although my mind rarely rests. I guess that a dose of muddle comes with that. I have started to talk to people, to connect face to face instead of by email. That’s simply amazing for me, a man who wouldn’t approach you personally unless I absolutely had to.
It’s important to go back over more than the last two years to make sense of the journey that gets me to this point. I don’t know how long it’s taken to get here. I do know that the trip has been bad. I’ve been married, for the wrong reasons, I’ve used my mind to shield and bury my sexuality. You know, in denial. I’ve used that same mind to keep people at a distance, to be argumentative and unwelcoming. There’s a lot in that to undo. I will always be in the undoing mode. I want to understand me, I want to question and hopefully find the answers. For the first time in years I really do feel free.
I’ve also moved positions on marriage. I’ve gone from being married to Jennie, despite all, this was a great relationship. When we broke up I didn’t want to get married ever again. I’ve moved to fighting for the right to get married in Australia to now actually wanting to get married. That alone is a big trip!
I still have battles to fight. I can’t get married to Michael in Australia. Some religious people still get up my nose. There are still people who struggle to make ends meet.
In all of this world, we still have large sections of it that are opposed to my personal, private relationship with Michael. It’s said to be harmful, wrong and the end of civilisation. To me it just feels like love. I know that what Michael and I have is not a threat to anyone, neither of us want to convert anyone to the ‘gay lifestyle’ (other than Hugh Jackman and a couple of other hunky types…). In Russia the persecution of gay people is on the increase. In Uganda homosexuality has been criminalised with prison time. Evangelical Americans continue to spread misinformation about us (and therefore me) and continue to demonise and demoralise people for no good reason other than their interpretation of the bible that I reject outright.
People starve, people die from preventable disease. Women are killed at the hands of men, children are abused by religious. Gay people are vilified, racism continues, misogynists exist. From this angle the world seems depressing and closed.
In my world, I have love. I have acceptance. I see my Tomas and Caitlin grown and developing into their own lives. I feel my partner at my side, partners in life. I have a great sense of family, which, I’ve discovered I can hand-pick.
I feel that it’s only right that in an act of defiance that I should say to the Australian Government, Fuck You! If you won’t let me get married, then I will just nick off somewhere else and do it.
I love Michael, he loves me. We are engaged. The next step is to be married. It’s what we do as a society. Marriage brings with it a public commitment and recognition of the relationship we have to each other. It says more than just a couple living together in a de-facto relationship. It carries more weight to say, “Please meet Michael, my husband” and not “Please meet Michael, my partner”.
Sure, it’s not for everyone, but I now know that it’s for me.
Those of you that have been part of my journey, thank-you. Buckle up, there’s more to do.
If I can go from one short fat lazy Australian to a 50-year-old, fit, slim bloke, then there is nothing we can’t do. No matter where this ends up, you take care of yourself, never stop asking questions and always be willing to change.
So, I leave my ponderings now, I wish the world a happy New Year and I wish you well.
5 years between photos
The stage was set.
Michael and I were at a fabulous restaurant, Bridges in Ubud, Bali.
We arrived to be welcomed back by the staff who remembered us from the lunch we’d had there a few days earlier. The restaurant was romantically lit, the colour scheme cream and dark brown with pieces of metal and rope around mimicking the nearby bridge over the Campuhan River. We stepped out into a terrace open to the world. A verandah overhead with fans spinning and took up our seats on the balcony. The waiters pulled our chairs out and pushed them in for us as we sat down and fluffed our napkins for us.
To my left was the valley with the river far below, I could see the bridge with its LED rope lights marking its span. The lush growth of the forest is highlighted by huge spot lights. The long slender coconut tree with the orchids and ferns growing from its trunk. The banana trees with vines dangling from the canopy towards the river, the tree with so many other plants growing on it it looks ready to fall over. In the distance we could see Murni’s where we’d eaten a few times. To my right an English couple, happily ordering their meal and a bottle of wine. In their 60’s probably on holiday quietly chatting with each other.
In front of me Michael. In his blue button up shirt only worn for dinner. Two buttons open. His hands and fingers moving as he talks, his brown eyes looking at me, his terrific smile, he’s happy and engaged with the staff and with me as we order our meal of fish and wine.
Our conversations are always far-ranging. We start by talking about creating software for predictive election results and how that would work. We talk a bit about How to Vote Cards, my children and what’s happening with them, my sister Angela, Jo and Rob arriving as we leave Bali.
The conversation now turns towards marriage. We have many times spoken about getting married. I have asked many times if Michael would like to get married, his answer a rather evasive ‘moot point’ response. Even if we want to get married we can’t in Australia. We will wait until the law is changed and then we can talk about it, along with the obvious retort from either of us “Is that a proposal? Aren’t you suppose to be on one knee?”
As I’ve said to him many times I actually don’t need to get married to him. I don’t need to have our relationship recognised by anyone else. I understand what he means to me, I know that in my heart I have a deep love for him. There is no part of me that needs independent recognition of our relationship. I’m in this for life.
Then, it changes. I don’t need to get married to Michael. I want to. I no longer have enough words to express how much I value him in my life, what it is that we have. I sense that I now need something that takes us to the next level. Something that is symbolic of that love we share and the unspoken commitment that we have to each other. I need a way to express that to him, and to those I love that here is a man who is important to me. A man who I want to spend my life with, that I want to love and be loved by in return. A man I want to share everything with. A man who makes my heart sing.
The question is asked, like it has been asked so many times. Michael tries to avoid an answer. We talk about how this is about me needing to find something that expresses the way I feel about him, how important and valuable this relationship is. He talks about how all of that is mutual, Michael has already made a commitment to our relationship in his own mind. I sit and look and wait, it slowly dawns on him that I’m actually asking a question that now needs a yes or no answer. I ask him, putting aside the reality of not being able to marry in Australia, will he marry me.
With tears in our eyes he says yes.
Life goes on around us, plates and glasses come and go, people chat and laugh, we look at each other with a huge amount of love and emotion as we struggle to find a way to express what’s just happened. We shed some tears, we smile at each other we struggle with the reality of going public.
The get away to Bali has been terrific, I’ve been able to see and do things outside my everyday life. I’ve found a partner and friend in Michael who I want to be with. We have five solid years together. I’ve found a way to express the depth of my feeling towards another person. We have found a way to share those feelings with our families and friends in our lives. We have an understanding, we have an acceptance. We have love.
Even in far flung Ubud, Bali I have heard the noise from Australia about the Prime Minister smacking down a chrisitan who had the tenacity to ask the PM about his back flip on marriage equality.
I can’t help but make a few comments on some of the stuff I’ve read from some christian quarters about Rudd’s comments.
And let me be really clear here. I don’t like Kevin Rudd, to me he is simply another man in a suit that is bent on keeping the job of Prime Minister and has little regard for anyone else because he knows best.
In a nutshell, a christian pastor asked the christian Prime Minister how he could now support marriage equality when Jesus himself made it clear that marriage was between a man and a woman. Rudd in his response said:
I do not believe people, when they are born, choose their sexuality. They are gay if they are born gay. You don’t decide at some later stage in life to be one thing or the other. It is – it is how people are built and, therefore, the idea that this is somehow an abnormal condition is just wrong. I don’t get that. I think that is just a completely ill-founded view.
He went on to say other things, have a look at the video or read the transcript.
I want to focus on this particular statement about being born gay. This is from my own personal journey.
Some other bloggers have taken to their blogs to object to the PM’s notion that people are born gay.
Bill Muelhenberg on his blog called “Culture Watch” said this:
He (Rudd) assured us that homosexuals are born that way and cannot change, thereby calling Jesus a liar for telling us he came to set people free from their sinful lifestyles.
…snip…
It (The Bible) is nothing of the sort. It is about the truth that we are condemned sinners heading to hell, and that Jesus died for our sin so that through faith and repentance we can be set free and made right with God.
Arnold Jago – Mildura doctor and devout Catholic says this on his blog called “The Real Mary Mackillop”:
Last night on ABC-TV, Prime Minster Kevin Rudd was applauded for claiming that same-sex “marriage” is compatible with Christian thought.
Based on two assumptions:
* that homosexuality is not abnormal because some people can’t help it. “They are gay if they are born gay,” he said.
Which is not factually correct. It’s far from being that simple.
* having hopefully got away with that dubious generalisation, Mr Rudd steered further off track.
“What is the fundamental principle of the New Testament…Loving your fellow man,” he said.
Well yes. But if, in fact, homosexuality is a disorder, the way to show a man love is to warn him of his problem and guide him towards a better way.
Out there on the net are plenty of other examples of christians being upset that Rudd claims that I was born gay.
Was I born gay? I don’t know. Does it matter? Not to me. Am I disordered? I don’t think so.
I don’t know why I’m gay but I can tell you that from a very early stage in my life I knew that I was gay. I may not have had the words to describe how I felt and I certainly didn’t know what it meant. But from about the age of 8 there was a part of my brain that knew that boys were far more interesting to me than girls.
In my teens I had no interest in the opposite sex and my early sexual encounters and my first serious relationship was with a man. Women didn’t figure at all. By the time I was in my 20’s this was causing me angst thanks to religion. I wasn’t ‘growing out of it’ as some people seemed to suggest. The phase I was going through seemed to be rather long.
I don’t know where my sexuality came from, but I do know how hard I tried to get rid of it. Ask my siblings about me growing up. An angry youngster.
There’s claims that my sexuality may have been caused by an absent father or lack of relationship with him, it may have been caused by sexual abuse from a man, or it might have been the devil. However, there’s 11 children, my sisters and brothers either side of me don’t appear to be gay. Our experience in growing up is very similar. I can only think that I suffer from 8th child syndrome, well known for causing gayness.
Being gay is not something that I learned to be. In fact the reverse is true. I did my best to learn to be straight. I even got married and had kids to prove that I was a true blue Aussie bloke able to scratch my nuts, spit, swear and make disgusting statements about sex.
Then for some strange reason that veneer broke down. I was angry even though I thought god had answered my prayers and given me a wife and a family. I was devout. I loved jesus and thanked him for my wonderful life. My prayers had been answered, god had taken away the ‘sin of homosexuality’ from me.
At this stage christians will tell me that I wasn’t trying hard enough, I didn’t pray hard enough, I didn’t believe hard enough. I gave in to temptation. The devil made me do it. I choose to be gay.
You’re joking, right? Christians think I made a decision to be gay and to be subjected to a world of hatred and bigotry? Some christians think I picked a sexuality that would lead me to live in a world surrounded by homophobic believers. I was a true catholic, I knew that sinners would go to hell. That’s an eternity in torment. I really believed that. Why would I pick to spend all of time in the pits of hell?
I didn’t pick being gay, it was only when I made the decision to be who I really was, to accept that my sexuality was innate that I finally found peace. It is only in a loving relationship with Michael that I have truly found myself.
This is my world. I’m not disordered or a sinner. I don’t hate god (there is no god to hate) and I don’t need god.
I don’t need religion to define me.
I’m happy for people to believe whatever they want, go for it.
I’m not happy for other people’s belief systems to impact on me. I reject that outright. It’s not ok for a pastor from Queensland to suggest that there is something wrong with me, it’s not ok for fundamentalist christians to continue the hate and the bigotry based on concepts that I have no belief in. It’s not ok for some fundamentalists to pretend that they really love me and want me to know the truth according to them.
I am not asking anyone else to be gay, I’m not trying to change anyone’s sexuality (but if Matt Damon was interested…), I just want to get on with my life, I want to spend it with Michael, we love each other, we want to be together.
I am now happy. Not because I’ve rejected religion or that I’ve taken the ‘easy path’ or given in to the sin of homosexuality. I’m happy because I have accepted who I am and I’m no longer trying to be who others think I should be.
In the straight world after 5 years of being together people would ask me when the big day was. When are we getting married.
That’s a really good question. When am I getting married?
My latest blog becomes a video! A vlog
Election Campaign 2010 – Media release about Danby and Marriage Equality
Interview with Michael Danby from C31 – The Shtick, 14th April 2013
Presenter: Gregory Storer
Voice over: Michael Barnett
Vlog produced by Michael Barnett and Gregory Storer
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Images: Sourced from Wikimedia Commons. Michael Danby, Star of David, Rainbow Flag
Map from the Australian Electoral Commission
Music from Incompetech
Made using Open Source Software: Blender, OpenShot, Gimp and Ubuntu
