Hi DreamON,

I suspect that the situation is far worse than you suggest: "I believe some members (and yet to be members) of the LGBT community are still being terribly demonised."

There may actually be people out there, probably bigots every one of them, who don't give a flying toss about LGBTI issues. As is their right.

Even more dreadful, some people may still regard heterosexuality as normal. Some of those utter bastards may not care particularly about homosexual issues. They may even be 'homophobes'. As is their right.

Suck it up.

Joe

phanto,

You were right! I’ve been trying a bit of meditation and yoga to assist in my attempts to “examine my conscience”, and I had a spiritual awakening that felt like Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Now all my guilt over “nagging” you has suddenly surfaced and it’s unbearable!

I’ve taken your advice and am now thinking with my emotions instead of my brain, but all that’s happened so far is that I’ve developed a gluten intolerance and require a strictly-organic, non-GMO paleo diet because that’s what my intuition tells me is right. The conservative in me, however, wants to find God and deny climate change.

I’m growing a big beard and only drink craft beer now, but nothing helps. Could it be the immeasurably small amounts of scary-sounding metals and chemicals in the vaccines that Big Pharma fooled my parents into thinking I needed? Would reading some Deepak Chopra help, do you think?

Oh please help, phanto!

--

Joe,

How does the fact that there are people out there who don’t care about these issues make the situation “far worse”?

<<There may actually be people out there ... who don't give a flying toss about LGBTI issues.>>

There’s bound to be important issues that just can’t get me mobilised. We can’t expect to be interested in every important issue. People just don’t have that much energy. For example, if you’re right and the stolen generation is all a myth, then spreading the word would be important, but stuffed if you’d get me off my arse to do that.

<<...some people may still regard heterosexuality as normal. Some ... may not care particularly about homosexual issues.>>

So long as they don’t treat gay people as though they were abnormal or attempt to spread unfounded ideas, then that’s fine too.

But thank you for letting us know, in spectacular fashion, that you don’t give a toss about these issues, despite the benefits to be had. Personally, I want a less discriminatory society to live in and I’m not afraid, as a heterosexual, to admit that some of the reasons for that are selfish.

Hi AJ,

Sorry, I was trying to stay on DreamOn's good side, but couldn't keep it up for long. No, I don't care about homosexual issues, and I don't have to. As you say, there are many issues for one to get interested in, and that's not really one of them.

I certainly think that being homosexual and practising homosexuality should be legal, as they are, and anybody should be able to ponce around dressed as they like and get themselves docked if they like, provided they are consenting adults. But I don't have to care, any more than I have to take sides in some pointless argument about the superiority of Toohey's over whatever the beer is in Melbourne. Foster's. All dishwater compared to Cooper's.

Good luck to homosexuals, polyamorists, dog-lovers, whatever. But don't expect everybody to give it the time of day: it's their right not to, as you point out.

Joe

I'm still feeling a bit astounded by *YY's* post.

But *Joe* whilst I can appreciate what you say, from a certain "limited" perspective, the problem to me is this.

Whether it is child abuse (physical,sexual, psychological or otherwise) or Human Rights abuses more broadly, we should have zero tolerance for it.

It is worth baring in mind that if you allow your guvment to do this, and allow them to refuse to be held to account, sooner or later they will be abusing someone a bit closer to you.

So, in my book, you can be personally staunchly opposed to other than hetero, but you can still say no to discrimination and inequality, you can still say no to child abuse, regardless of whose kids they are, you can still say no to human rights abuses, even if they are your enemy.

..

And there is bad blood in the community. Over the ages, through place and time, the minority communities in question have been abused. And, not unsurprisingly, they resist oppression .. by for example .. having a mardi gras

(really dangerous radical stuff admittedly)

No, Joe, you don’t have to care any more.

<<But I don't have to care, any more than I have to take sides in some pointless argument about the superiority of Toohey's over whatever the beer is in Melbourne. Foster's. All dishwater compared to Cooper's.>>

But any decent human being would given that there are tangible implications to the marriage equality issue.

<<Good luck to homosexuals, polyamorists, dog-lovers, whatever. But don't expect everybody to give it the time of day: it's their right not to, as you point out.>>

Thanks for the False-Comparison-Bordering-on-Slippery-Slope fallacy. I’ve been waiting for it on this thread and was starting to think it was never going to happen. Thanks for pulling through for us.

Your comparisons are no more valid than they would be had they been applied to interracial marriages.

Hi DreamOn,

A lot of 'ifs' there :) Your progression from child abuse, through uncaring governments, to child abuse near me, is a little tenuous, and irrelevant.

Child abuse is happening, on a horrific scale, in many Indigenous 'communities', perhaps fifty times more likely there than in an 'average' Australian home, i.e. about two hundred times more likely than in Mosman or Toorak. Infant and child deaths are probably in the same ratio. THAT is an issue. Dreadfully short life expectancy in some Indigenous 'communities' is another critical issue. Being able to find the best fresh kale or make-up is NOT an issue.

Frankly, I've never seen anything particularly radical or progressive about homosexual activities: do it all you like, but don't call it radical or progressive. Maybe because I come from a working-class background, I've always seen much of it as a sort of middle- and more particularly upper-class perversion. So sue me.

And what is stopping homosexuals doing whatever they liked within the existing law ?

Let's move on to more important issues.

Joe