What it means to wear a safety pin

Why are people wearing safety pins?

 

While they may be reviving the punk rock fashion or simply have had a wardrobe malfunction, chances are that they are actually being a decent human being.

It started with the overt racism of "brexit", those who were disgusted in this racism chose to show their solidarity with the persecuted minorities by wearing safety pins. 

After the unbelievable (and rigged if Donald Trump is to be believed) election of Donald Trump to the US presidency, the mighty pin was taken up again, but this time the pin had renewed power.

This is no mere slactivism!

Those who take on the responsibility of wearing the safety pin take an oath, they will speak up against "casual" racism, homophobia,sexism, and transphobia. They will intercede when necessary to protect religious minority's from insult or harm. 

A victim of bigotry will see the pin and know that the wearer is someone they can turn to for help, from sitting with them on the train to calling for help when they are assaulted. 

Strangely, I have already seem some criticise this movement, i can only say that there were definitely times in my life where people could have spoken up, could have helped me stand against religious discrimination and homophobia, but didn't. Any movement that means there are more people standing up for the oppressed must be a good thing. 

Sometimes we all need a helping hand there is no shame or embarrassment in needing, asking for or offering that helping hand.

It is also a reminder to the wearer that we have a responsibility to help the persecuted when needed and to stand with the oppressed against the oppressors.

Its also the perfect time to do more, with the racists in Australia celebrating Trumps "win". We need our allies on deck now more then ever. 

Some sources:

Trump confession?
http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37673797

Hanson celebrates fascism?

 http://www.news.com.au/national/politics/one-nation-senator-pauline-hanson-makes-toasts-donald-trump-to-victory/news-story/5f21193fe75fcafb3f90e6877a0bae4b

Halloween in Australia

Its not Halloween in Australia 

 

 Its Beltane night in Australia as i am writing this, i am currently single and have no plans to connect with any other Pagans tonight.
 For the last few years the ignorant masses in Australia have stated to trick or treat on October 31st which is Halloween and Samhain in the northern hemisphere. These people don't seem to realise its not Autumn here, but i shouldn't be surprised these are probably the same people that celebrate the Winter Solstice or Yule at the height of Summer.

 I don't even know if we can blame them, the shops are still selling all the Samhain paraphernalia at the wrong time of year, and it seems respect for the religious holy day has been ignored in favor of cheap commercialism. 

  I have lamented this take over of Beltane before here Halloween 2015 and i have been saddened by the lack of interest in Samhain 2015.

 I don't know what to do about it. There are fewer trick or treaters at my door this Beltane, probably due to me politely informing the adults that they had the wrong night in previous years. However if we accept that those avoiding my house are the same people that know facts, then that would mean that these people are purposely being religiously bigoted, and that's pretty sad.

 If there were more Pagans in my small town then perhaps we could make a big show of trick or treating at the right time of year. But sadly there isn't and i feel that these people would just start double dipping so to speak. 

 Possibly the worst part is that i would love to share our most holy night with the non-Pagans, but no one comes to my door on Halloween/Samhain.

 If you know anything about Beltane, it isn't really an appropriate night for responsible guardians to send their children to strangers houses. It negatively effects our holy Beltane rites and it basically means we have had to delay any real celebrations until well after the streets are cleared of the seasonally deluded and their brood.

 I had mused in the past abut celebrating  Día de Muertos or the Day of the Dead on the 31st, perhaps doing the Day of the Dead thing early in the evening and then getting back to the Beltane celebrations later in the night. However i didn't know if The Day of the Dead was seasonal or an actual date (dates really), and i was also uncomfortable with the cultural appropriation aspects of doing this. But i have since discovered that The Day of the Dead was originally an Aztec festival, and was originally celebrated in Summer! So that set the time of year about right, and this year among the tatty "Halloween" merchandise i saw a number of Day of the Dead items, mostly calavera (candy skulls), so it appears the cultural appropriation cat is already out of the bag. Also i feel less guilty about this aspect due to my dealings with La Santa Muerte.

 So what to do? Tonight more than others i actually find myself annoyed that the ignorance, laziness, or religious insensitivity of others had made me concentrate on Samhain when i could be celebrating Beltane.

Door to door for Día de Muertos

 Obviously you should only go door to door for  Día de Muertos, if you are actually celebrating the festival as respectfully as you can. An appropriate costume would be colorful and have candy skull make up or a devil mask. a funny poem might facilitate the exchange for lollies.

  Going door to door for Beltane

 If people really must go Mummering on Beltane perhaps we can at least expect them to do so respectfully. A modified Hoodening could work. You should really only go door to door on Beltane if your family is needy, or perhaps you have at least given to a respectable charity.
 Dressing as fairys, goats and other horned animals, rabbits, bees, and the Obby Oss (Mari Lwyd) might all be appropriate.
 Singing the Obby Oss carol or a Beltane song, a Beltane blessing, or reciting a clever rhyme could easily replace the inappropriate "trick or treat?".

Going door to door on Halloween / Samhain

 Make sure you have the correct night, its April30th / May 1st in Australia. Only go to peoples houses that are participating, they will have "spooky" decorations and will have their front light on. Go in a costume, you have to put some effort in.

Breaking News: None of this is insulting...

Barnaby Joyce claims that no one has been insulted by the "debate" on equality.

 

 Barnaby Joyce who is unbelievably the deputy PM of Australia, has recently claimed that "I don't see anybody's been assaulted or killed, or even really insulted" as a result of the proposed plebiscite.

 Barnaby Joyce is the buffoon who threatened to kill Johnny Depp's puppys. The same person claimed that gay people shouldn't have equal rights because "everybody doesn't always get everything they want". He attacked the brave people who exposed the cruelty in the Australian wool industry for exposing the cruelty instead of addressing the actual cruelty.

 A bit of back story, the Plebiscite is a public vote on if gay people should have the same rights as straight people. The plebiscite isn't necessary and the current laws are unconstitutional. The vote would not be binding, the government will fund homophobia and hate speech in the lead up to the vote, and even if the vote passed the result wouldn't even grant equal marriage rights, it would entrench LGBT discrimination into law.

 Barnaby Joyce has said this dispute homophobes calling gay people Nazis knowing how offensive that is because the Nazis were persecuting gay men during the holocaust.

  This is despite homophobic flyers being distributed on car windshields and into innocent peoples letter boxes. These flyers were insulting to Nelsen Mandela, children, single parent families, foster families, blended families, and of course LGBT Australians, they were incredibly untruthful, off-topic and bigoted.

 He said this after people protesting an anti-bullying campaign have implied LGBT youth are pedophiles and called for them to be lynched. In addition to saying that supporters of equality should be killed.

 So there could be a few reasons for his demonstrably false comment.

1. He is incompetent, and has not followed the news, he did not check up on the facts before being interviewed. 

2.  He is aware of all this homophobic behavior but has such a low opinion of LGBT Australians that he doesn't consider any of this misinformation, threats of violence or vilification to be  insulting.

3. He is not being incompetent, he is putting his homophobia aside and he is choosing to lie the he Australian people.

 

 I don't think any of these possibility's are ideal for anyone holding a political position. We should expect more competence, respect and honesty from the leader of a political parry. That he is the deputy prime minister of Australia should be a concern to all decent Australians. He should apologise and resign immediately.

 Malcolm Turnbull who is also for the homophobic plebiscite but has falsely claimed the "debate" on equal rights would be civil and respectful. Mr. Turnbull has so far ignored all the hate speech and misinformation being spread by the anti-marriage homophobes. He has taken no action against those from within his party that re spreading this hate speech, even before the public funded gay vilification program officially begins.  

 Despite the fact that he has also said that Australia has no place for homophobia and that homophobia would not be tolerated in Australia, he has yet to stand up to the radical right in defense of Australians.
 Mr.Turnbull may be in a difficult position one one hand his party demands that they keep an election promise for once and vote on equality before the end of 2016, while on the other hand radical bigots within his party refuse to vote on marriage equality without the horrific plebiscite.
 At this stage it seems he ether needs to stand up to the rot within his party and vote for real marriage equality before the end of the year as promised or he needs to declare he has lost faith in his party's ability to govern and hand over the government. I am not sure how that would work in or system but he cant continue to do nothing.

 

Breaking News: Did Hanson say something factual?

Hanson was sort of right, but for the wrong reasons.

 Pauline Hanson of the racist OneNation* party has declared that she still doesn’t support equal rights for LGBT Australians, because she mistakenly thinks that giving gay people equal rights would somehow take rights away from her. This of course nonsense and matches her usual uniformed opinion. 

 Its like she has her "whites" only beach where she swims, and there is infinite room, but she doesn't want any "non-whites" on the beach because she thinks it would somehow take away her ability to beach, or redefine what swimming was or something. Its sometimes really difficult to understand this kind of stupid.

Or

 It like if she stole a recipe for pancakes from a Pagan group and shared it with all her Christian friends. But then when the Pagans asked her for a copy she refused saying that doing so would be taking pancakes away from her and would lessen her pancake experience.

OR

 Its actually exactly like she has the rights to do something that other Australians have had taken away from them through no fault of there own. And she doesn't want them to have the same rights as her because, because i cant even think of a legitimate reason. She has said she is against same-sex people marrying because she doesn't personally need to marry someone of the same sex, but that cant be it really can it? Is she really just petty, selfish and cruel?

 Does she think same-sex marriage would be compulsory? Does she think opposite sex marriages would be annulled? Does she believe that couples will be magically sex changed so they would no longer be in opposite sex marriages? 
 Please Pauline become informed before you speak, there are gullible people who believe what you say at face value. I doubt she even consulted one LGBT group before spouting this nonsense.

 When confronted with the documented fact, proven by professionals that the kind of hate speech allowed by a plebiscite on human rights would be damaging to the LGBT community she said, "i don't agree with that". 
 She really thinks that her uniformed opinion is more important and accurate than actual qualified professional studies.
 I knew she was ignorant but this is willfully so. She has the facts presented to her and just says no, as if she can alter the fabric of reality with her obnoxious rebuttal. Well i suppose that fits in well with the other conspiracy theories of OneNation* members. Who voted for this kind of anti-intellectualism?

 She also supports the homophobic plebiscite that even if it passed and all that, wouldn’t give equality to LGBT Australians as the LIB/Nats will put in legislation allowing same-sex couples to be legally discriminated against, that’s not equal rights.

 She went on, and I kid you not, she went on to say that if LGBT Australians don’t like not having equal rights they should leave Australia. 
 Is that her solution for everything, does she have shares in passenger liners or something?
 I suppose we can get on the same boat as the Asians, Muslims and Aboriginals, oh that’s right it cant be a boat, boats are still bad right?. Does OneNation* believe in the science of aerodynamics? I have my doubts as OneNation* is so anti-science and anti-facts. 
 It is so ironic that despite the fact that OneNation* supporters want to change our constitution and don't like Australians freedoms and rights, and want to change these things. It is them who say "Australia, love it or leave!" They fail to acknowledge how hypocritical this is. I prefer to love what is right with Australia, and work towards changing those that are not, to make Australia better for everyone. If anyone needs to leave, can it be the racists, and bigots, please?
 The amount of exceptions to the One Nation she wants to create grows more every day.

 She was sort of right when she said that Australia should stop listening to minority's. But she was right only in that Australia needs to stop listening to OneNation*, as they only got less then 5% of the vote they are a very vocal minority indeed. 

 But she is wrong because the reason we should stop listening to OneNation* isn't because they are a minority, it is because they spout ignorant, uniformed, bigoted nonsense.

 However she did say she would vote yes on equal rights if the plebiscite result was yes, so hey she is right in doing that. I just hope if it comes to that, that it hasn't cost too many LGBT lives.

 But before you start checking the ancient texts to see if Hanson being right is a sign of the apocalypse, her reasoning is still wrong.  
  She shouldn't vote for marriage equality because a popular vote said it was popular (and polls already show that by the way), no she should be fighting for equality, because it is the right thing to do.

* OneNation may exclude entry due to ethnicity, gender, religion or sexuality.

Sources:
Pauline Hanson homophobia  
Pauline Hanson still homophobic

Breaking News: Turnbull has an opportunity to do the right thing.

Turnbull has an opportunity to do the right thing.

 As i am sure everyone is aware Turnbull has inherited Abbots homophobic plebiscite on equality. The policy delays marriage equality vote in Parliament until after a non-binding public vote. Even then we have seen that the promise to have this vote before the end of the year has been dropped. Despite the only reason the Lib/Nats can give for risking LGBT lives in this way is that it was an election promise. We know from there track record that the LIb/Nats don't actually care about keeping election promises.

 Most political commentators agree that Turnbull made a deal with the radical right of his party for the leadership after Abbots behavior became too bizarre to ignore. This deal with the devil seems to have included delaying marriage equality in Australia. 

 It should also be noted that the Lib/Nats plan for marriage equality would not give true equality to LGBT Australians. The documents show that anyone would be free to discriminate against gay people and pretend they were not in fact married. That is not equality,

So to sum all that up the Lib/Nat plan would:

It is no going to happen this year.
It is unnecessary.
It will be a hugely expensive waste of money.
It will provide funds for the hate groups to force channels to spread hate speech and vilify the LGBT community. 
It will provide funds for the hate groups to spread misinformation about the LGBT community.
It will include having a plebiscite that would not be binding.
Politicians have already said they will not abide by the plebiscite decision f it was for equality. 
Marriage equality would still then have to pass through Parliament at some unspecified date in the future.
True marriage equality would not be achieved because same-sex marriages would be subject to legal sanctioned discrimination.
It could cost lives.

 Turnbull has said that he believes the "debate" would be polite and civil. He has said that Australia has no place for homophobia. He has said homophobia wouldn't be tolerated in Australia. However he has failed to act when instances of homophobia have occurred. 

But the far-right within his party have done him a favor. They have proved him wrong. Before the official "debate" even started. They have released flyers that are misleading, inaccurate, and homophobic, they are in no way civil. 

 These disgusting flyers try to use Nelson Mandela in an attack on LGBT families and their children, which the Mandela foundation has declared was unauthorized and does not align with Nelson Mandalas views as he stood against homophobia. The flyers also attacked a school anti-bullying program and pretended that it was somehow linked to Australia's marriage laws.

A right wing newspaper that has previously printed racist comic in reaction to Aboriginal youth being tortured has now published a homophobic and anti-Semitic comic by the same "artist" that equates marriage equality with Nazis. As anyone with a passing knowledge of history or access to the internet should know, homosexual men were persecuted and killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
 It gets worse as the ACL hate group have made similar claims before, and it is all over the internet how disrespectful and inaccurate that was. I doubt the artist or the editors could have missed seeing this and how vicious this comic would be. Interestingly this my actually be covered under Australians anti-hate speech laws as it attacks not just gays but also gay Jews.

 This has given Turnbull an opportunity to announce with great disappointment that he was wrong and that the far-right can obviously not behave civilly, and so have proven they cant be given public funds to spread such dangerous lies. He can declare that they have forced his hand and that the plebiscite is off, he can then immediately vote in Parliament for true marriage equality. He can easily use the comic and the disgusting flyers as justification that overrides any promises he may have made behind closed doors. His first priority must be to the Australian people after all.

 At the very least he can concede that all material on the anti-marriage side must be fact checked, and that any applicantsfor the funding will have a background check, and any uncivil, untrue or discriminatory past conduct against the LGBT community will eliminate them from the process.

 The attack on LGBT Australians and their family's is so vile Turnbull could even use it as a legitimate reason to strengthen the laws protecting LGBT Australians from hate speech and discrimination.

Hate speech flyers

Reactions to the dondale chrisis.

Reactions to child abuse.

 Most Australians were appalled and disgusted by the horrible revelations made by the four corners program. This program exposed the government sanctioned abuse and torture of children in detention. 

 Some Australians however reacted in a very different way. They took to Parliament to try to water down our anti-discrimination laws. I am so ashamed that some Australians reaction to seeig Aboriginal children tortured was to try to remove the limited protections they have under the law.

 It should be noted that our anti-discrimination laws are only ever used in the most heinous and public of cases.

 We can see a few familiar faces behind this pro-racism push. 

 There is Cory, who made a name for himself with his homophobia, but he seems to be spreading his prejudice around. Cory has loudly attacked the freedom of speech of his victims, when those victims accurately describe his attacks as homophobia.
 It should be noted that he did not seek to change the fact that the big religions are exempt from most anti-discrimination laws.

And we cant forget Pauline ruler of One Nation, who has made racism and bigotry her platform as a professional politician. Pauline is well known for her attacks on freedom of speech and expression.

 Roberts of One Nation seems to be a conspiracy theorist. I think the fact someone voted for him means we need a re-think of our voting system, like at least making information on the candidates available to the voting public.

 I cant see much information on Brian Burston, being that he is pro-racism and willingly joined One Nation we can probably assume sadly, that he shares its other bigoted views.

 Rod Culleton is another One Nation member, i cant see much about him, other then he claims to have helped farmers against the banks, and has had a larceny conviction annulled. One wonders as he is with One Nation, if he would support farmers of another race, religion or sexuality?

 These people and their pro-racism reaction to the Dondale kids expose sicken me. If they are your government representatives please let them know we need to strength anti-discrimination laws, not weaken them.

Bigot Point: "Opposing gay marriage doesn't make me homophobic", debunked!

Bigot Point: 

"Opposing gay marriage doesn't make me homophobic"

 Debunked!

 There are some bigoted people who say and do extremely homophobic things, but then cry foul when they are rightly identified as homophobic. This is an easy one to debunk, frankly i don't even think the bigots saying this nonsense believe it.

 

 So lets get the definition out of the way first up, probably the easiest way to think of the definition of homophobe is to think of a racist, but instead of being prejudiced against a race the person is prejudiced against gay people.

 So with that out of the way, we can see that discriminating against gay people would be homophobic. We can see that not wanting gay people to have equal rights would definitely be homophobic. If you are against two same sex consenting adults having the right to marry you are homophobic.

 And no before you go there, it doesn't matter why you want to discriminate. Maybe you got drunk and hit on your gay same sex best friend in university and they turned you down, maybe your interpretation of your particular religion encourages your disgusting views, maybe you have repressed your own homosexuality and want to lash out at those brave enough to accept theirs, perhaps you believe that gays come from the moon to steal your socks,  it doesn't matter what the reason, how you try and justify your prejudice isn't important.

 If you don't want gay people to have equal rights, if you want to discriminate against gay people, your homophobic!

 By claiming otherwise you are trying to excuse homophobia. The problem isn't gay people wanting equal rights, the problem is the homophobes that are denying them.

 And please lets stop saying that describing someones homophobic behavior as homophobic is "name calling". Come on, that's as much "name calling" as calling a spade a spade is "name calling". If you have a problem with being labeled a homophobe you need to change your behavior, so you no longer accurately fit the definition, it is really that simple..