Melbourne CBD
In a recent terror attack in Australian city of Melbourne, 37 people were injured and 5 people tragically died. Pauline Hanson happened to be having one of her numerous media events at the time. You can see an advisor whispers in her ear and she looks stunned for a second and then turns and says smugly (note the look on her face!);
"Iv just been told there's a terorrister (sic) attack that's just happened in Melbourne."
"People don't look right! That their not going to assumeulate (sic) into our society, Have a different ideology, different beliefs, don't probide (sic) by our laws, our culture, our way of life, don't let them in!
Make this country safe for our future generations!"
She went on to falsely claim that
"all terrorist attacks in this country have been by Muslims!"
It should be noted that this was another homophobic terror attack, with the man having stabbed his gay brother and vowing 'I’m going to kill all gays and poofters and lesbians'.
Now if we ignore her targeting Muslims and pretend she had directed her comments against the homophobia of the terrorist we can actually see she would have been justified in making them. So lets fix that for her to make her comments relevant and factual, lets direct them at the proper targets.
'Homophobes are not going to assimilate into our society. Homophobes have a different ideology, different beliefs, they don't abide by our laws, our culture, and our way of life. Homophobia should not be tolerated! We need to make this country safe for our future generations.'
Of course she will never admit her 'mistake', it doesn't further her political career to actually fight the causes of terror. She still has not apologised for trying to straight-wash the homophobic Orlando attack and she i cant find anywhere where she has corrected her misinformation about the Melbourne attack, she certainly hasn't changed her homophobic policies.
Terror Organisation:
Earlier in February the Q-society held a fund raising event. I hadn't previously heard of the Q-society but its apparently a right wing group that opposes freedom of religion and the Australian constitution. Larry Pickering (who may be trying to win Australia's most disgusting cartoonist award from Bill Leak) attended the event where he said;
"I can't stand Muslims…[but] they are not all bad, they do chuck pillow-biters off buildings."
For those who don't know "pillow-biters" is a derogatory term for homosexuals, and Larry here is referring to the terrorist group ISIL policy of murdering gay men by throwing them off tall buildings. Obviously this support of terrorism should have been immediately condemned he should have been booed off the stage and escorted out of the building to a waiting police car, where he could receive a psychiatric evaluation before his trial on charges of hate crimes, advocating violence and supporting terrorism. But that didn't happen. instead we had right -wing, homophobic, science denying, anti-constitutional, pro-child bullying Cory Bernardi attended the event and thus provided his own support for this group. But he wasn't alone, George Christensen who shares many of Cory's reprehensible views and actually advocates for the death penalty for convicted terrorists.
None of us are layers specialising in anti-terrorism legislation, but it seems clear to us that praising the terrorism of terrorists is an act of terrorism as it creates a serious risk to the health and safety of the public. As this event was a fundraiser and this organisation appears to be a terrorist organisation all those in attendance have also funded terrorism which is a crime. The Q-society appears to be eligible for categorisation as a terrorist organisation as it seems to meet the criteria:
- is engaged in preparing, planning, assisting or fostering the doing of a terrorist act
or
- advocates the doing of a terrorist act.
- counsels, promotes, encourages or urges the doing of a terrorist act
- gives instruction on the doing of a terrorist act
- directly praises the doing of a terrorist act, where there is a
substantial risk that this praise might lead someone to engage in a
terrorist act.
The enforcement of our anti-terrorism legislation seems unlikely as the perpetrators were white, non-Muslims, the proposed victims were gay men, also the categorisation as a terrorist organisation is at the discretion of the attorney general.
But you can do something, if you remember Malcolm Trumble promised to protect us from homophobia and hate speech, lets at least ask him to do the bare minimum and condemn George Christensen for attending the Q Society's fundraiser!
One Nations* parade of clowns:
One nation* is a minor political party that relies on fear and misinformation to spread homophobia and racism. You will remember their candidates have shown and generally weird and often disgusting alternate views on reality. And I'm not just referencing the standard climate denial, anti-science, homophobic, anti-constitutional, racist, sexist, anti-worker, sexist, rubbish. One i missed was the outrageous alternate reality of Peter Rogers who claimed that poor Syrian refuge child on the beach was faked. Link to story here, but be warned it has that graphic photo, though it is slightly blurred.
So after all the other inappropriate candidates One Nation* gives us; Michelle Meyers, not to be confused with Michael Myers, who come to think of it might make a better candidate. Michelle Meyers claims to believe such insane things as "abortions create cannibals', 'gays are indoctrinating children, 'gays are confused', 'trans people are broken'. and that 'two dead Harvard graduated Norwegian homosexuals (who are also apparently somehow Nazi's) are using a well known mind control to make marriage equality and holographic (?) families more acceptable'.
While this should alarm everyone, what is possibly more distressing is that the government is giving her its preferences!
I am not going to comment on this further except to say that she is obviously unfit for government and i hope she receives the psychiatric help or education she evidently needs.
*excepts apply.
Australia recently had an inquiry into marriage equality. This inquiry specifically deals with exemptions for homophobic people and organizations. Presumably this all came about because it was revealed that the coalitions idea of marriage equality would create a new, different and lesser version of marriage for LGBTI people, and would not be equality at all.
Personalty the whole idea is a bit sickening it seems to me to be like allowing rapists to be exempt from rape charges or giving racists exemptions from racial discrimination laws. And some of the groups that gave submissions to this inquiry are known LGBT hate groups, so its like inviting the hate groups to discuss how much they should be immune from prosecution or consequence for their hate crimes.
So much for Malcolm Turnbulls promise that Australia had no place for Hate speech and no tolerance for homophobia.
I am not going to go through all the nonsense "alt-facts", and lies of these submissions. They usually read from the same hate-book so addressing one should be enough...but which one. Thee is one that was in the news recently for distributing hate-speech pro-LGBT bullying to innocent children not long after a child died from homophobic bullying at school. You will remember that the (anti)Marriage Alliance distributed this filth on a school bus!
Now I'm not going to go over every little detail in their submission as its unnecessary, many of the points can be refuted at once and unlike the far-radical-right i don't want to repeat myself.
The submission makes a big deal about freedom of religion and freedom to practice that religion. Their own submission states that such freedoms are limited by their effect on the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.
I agree with all this completely. Indeed our own constitution has very similar amendments. The problem with anti-marriage groups using this argument is of course that the argument is pro-marriage equality.
These rights don't just apply to radical fundamentalist Christians, no they apply to all religions. There are many religions and many more deity's that actualy recognize the natural diversity in sexuality. Indeed many christian churches want to marry their LGBT members.
The current marriage laws which were changed only a while ago in Australia to exclude LGBT couples are actually in violation of the rights to religious freedoms. Because these people are being prevented from practicing their religion, they are unable to marry. It should also be noted that the current laws are unconstitutional as they force others to adhere to a (far-right) religious belief as if it is law.
And no, changing the law to allow marriage equality wont impede another persons religion as it will not be mandatory to marry a person of the same sex.
The submission goes on to say that exemptions for religious ministers are not enough. They seem to want the legal ability to discriminate against LGBT married couples in all areas of life.
While i actually don't mind a minister not wanting to perform a marriage on basically any grounds. I do feel that the building itself should be accessible to anyone for free as these religious organizations don't pay tax or rates, because they are expected to provide a service to the community. Now if the church does not want to allow its grounds to be used by the community i also have no problems with it surrendering its tax-free status. (the submission directly addresses this but falsely claims this choice would amount to coercion).
But as for the hairdresser, doctor, judge, or policeman being able to refuse service based on sexuality or marital status, no way. This is exactly akin to making racists immune from racial discrimination laws. I am sure if "Christians" were refused service because they were in a opposite sex marriage they would be in uproar, just look at the fake "war on Christmas" nonsense just because some stores chose to be inclusive with "happy holidays".
They use the quote; Governments should respect the moral or religious teachings of parents / guardians.
They use this to attack the safe schools program. They claim that parents cant have their children opt out of the program, but i believe this to be untrue. However i think the program is even more important for children of bigots and homophobes, as they are probably more likely to bully other children. So while i think they are wrong saying they cant opt out, i do believe they shouldn't have that option, if your confident in your bigotry you should be able to have your beliefs questioned by your children when they are provided with the real facts.
They complain that safe schools teaches that normal variance in sexuality is normal, because it differs with the beliefs of their particular interpretation of their chosen religion. Wow, how would they feel if a religion not their own was taught as fact in schools? I am sure they would not be happy at all. No (anti) marriage alliance school should be a neutral ground where real facts are taught, if you want to indoctrinate your children do it at home and on the weekends.
They go on to bemoan that the time may come when religious schools are not permitted to be homophobic to their students, given the rates of youth bullying and suicide i personally think that day cant come soon enough.
And what about the rights of the child? A child should have the right to grow up knowing the reality of gender diversity (puberty is difficult enough without being surprised that your sexuality doesn't fit what you have been taught). A child should have the right to not be bullied at school? A child should have the right to not be shamed or beaten based on their sexuality, And a child should be able to grow up knowing they can marry the person they love. But the (anti) marriage alliance doesn't seem to care about the rights of the child.
They go on and on about how horrible it is for them to see that normal sexuality is being accepted as normal,
I fail to see how that's a bad thing.
They seem to admit that their bigotry is increasingly recognized as extremism.
I tend to agree, but it is happening too slowly and there is still a reluctance to call a spade a spade. They seem alarmed at this but i can only say if you don't want to be labeled extremist, radical, alt-right, racist, sexist, homophobic just stop fitting that label, its really quite simple.
Now if you really feel it is your chosen deity or religion that forces you to discriminate, i have awesome news for you! You are actually free to choose your religion and which deity's you worship in this country. It may surprise you to know that many religions and most deity's actually recognize the diversity of human sexuality. Damn, you could even not follow any religion or powers, many people don't and they live moral, happy lives without feeling the need to discriminate. You don't even need to go that far, many Christians support the fair and equal treatment of other humans. It really is your choice.
In conclusion:
It amazes me that they try to use freedom of religion to argue against freedom of religion for others. That they try to claim anti-discrimination laws should protect them but not their victims. They do this seemingly without irony or self awareness. Could they really lack such empathy for others that they don't see the hypocrisy of their behavior?
I think this kind of disingenuous argument comes from the fact that the legislation was changed recently to exclude same sex couples, and that the legislation does not in any way effect the various religious definitions of what marriage is. And their simply came a point where the majority of the public saw through "arguments' relating to this things too easily. You just cant say marriage cant be redefined anymore, because it has, it can and its not.
If this is the standard of the anti-marriage submissions, it really does seem like the time of homophobic, unconstitutional marriage discrimination in Australia is drawing to a close, as the submission basically boiled down to;
'We want to continue to discriminate against gay people without consequence and we think our interpretation of our chosen religion should give us cover to continue to do so.'
If you want me to examine more of these submissions, let me know.
One Nation* and its professional politician leader Pauline Hanson has a long history of homophobia. One Nations* website states that they want to keep Australians unconstitutional discriminatory marriage laws, One Nation* does not support equal rights.
Also remember that One Nation* leader Pauline Hanson disgustingly tried to straight-wash the Pulse homophobic terror attack!
It looked like One Nation* might have been improving its morality with promises of proper venting of candidates which is a good thing considering the science denying, racist and homophobic, conspiracy theory promoting nature of the candidates. Could we hope that this new direction might encourage One Nation to re-think its homophobic policy's?
Andy Semple who had been selected as a One Nation* state candidate for Queensland. He resigned after outrage at his homophobic twitter behavior. He tweeted a pro-trump (anti-LGBT) meme that was incredibly inappropriate, and then taunted anyone who would reasonably find it offensive by calling them the "queer mafia".
Despite the meme he shared being alt-right, homophobic and pro- shooting and him saying in the tweet that he isn't supportive of LGBT people having equal rights, He astonishingly claims that he isn't a homophobe. But went on to say he liked to make fun of political opponents, scientists and already vilified minority's. So we can thank One Nation* for actually asking him to rein in the homophobia, even if he resigned and was not fired, we don't need more bigotry in Australian politics.
Then we had Shan Ju Lin another Queensland One Nation* candidate who seemed to enjoy spreading anti-gay hate speech on Facebook, with posts saying that gays were sick, abnormal, criminals. She went on to support the bullying of LGBT youth, mis-identifyd what traditional values were and that gays should have to take a gay test at a doctors before coming out? Of course Shan Ju Lin claimed her views were not homophobic, before hypocritically saying she was only concerned about child welfare...
We need better sexual education and the safe-schools program to be mandatory in all schools, so people don't grow up with such hideously wrong headed views, she is a politician for frights sake!
Now this may shock many but Pauline Hanson actually fired Shan Ju Lin saying that her views were not supported by One Nation*, even saying that the homophobic views expressed "trashed" One Nation*.
It is good to know that One Nation*s homophobia does have limits, though Hanson seems to be drawing the line in a strange place, still its a good thing Hanson recognized Homophobia and dealt with it appropriately. We can only hope this is a sign that One Nation* may be turning a new leaf in dealing with the rampant homophobia within its party and its hideous treatment of LGBT Australians may improve.
We were then presented with Tracey Bell-Henselin yet another One Nation candidate.
She took to Facebook to falsely claim that gays were the real bigots and were out to destroy families. Obviously this is utter nonsense and victim blaming double speak. It is the bigots whose homophobia separates LGBT Australians from their family, we are not responsible for our family's lack of empathy, acceptance, or love. Homophobia is the problem, not homosexuality.
She went on to claim that defending Australia's unconstitutional, discriminatory law was lawful. Which i suppose is debatable, though i would argue that the constitution should take precedence over Howard's homophobic changes to the marriage act.
She bemoaned people correctly labeling her as a bigot and homophobe. Seriously people if you don't want to wear your label with pride, simply stop fitting that label. We cant change your behavior for you.
She also seems to be under the misconception that gay people are not born like heterosexual people as there are apparently no mothers or fathers of LGBT people in her bizarre world view.
She is also under the delusion that trans people are predatory sexual criminals, despite all evidence to the contrary. Now i would show statistics on the rates of predatory bathroom behavior among transgender people, but for the fact that their are none, because it just isn't a thing that really happens in the real world. Its just easy for bigots to rile up hate against trans people because their situation isn't easily understood by the majority who are often fearful of anything different.
Of course Tracy Bell-Henselin is against safe schools, preferring that LGBT kids, and those perceived to be LGBT are bullied despite recent youth suicide due to homophobic bullying. And the fact that the recent homophobia expressed by One Nation* candidates including her own, shows how important good sexual education really is.
In a strange move Hanson apparently laughed off Tracy Bell- Henselins homophobia falsely claiming these homophobic comments are not homophobic at all. Hanson seems to be drawing the line between what is and isn't homophobic in very strange places. It is a very wriggly and scribbled line indeed....
Homophobes actually don't get to choose what is or is not homophobia. Homophobia is the discrimination, hatred, or vilification of LGBT people. You cant pick and chose within that definition what you want to include and exclude, you just need to stop treating the LGBT community as a scapegoat, stop cashing in on homophobia.
Can you justify why Tracy Bell-Henselins homophobia is any different from the other One Nation* candidates? Why is one candidate spreading the disgusting lie that homosexuality and pedophilia are somehow linked, sacked and the other not?
* Excludes; Non-whites, Non- christians, Non -straights.
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