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