Posted: May 15, 2012 at 10:03 pm | Tags: ALC, Christianity, equal marriage, identity, lgbtiq, parents, Religion
So the ACL put out a press release today claiming that the “gay activists” (yes I know, I’m one too, I want to know who isn’t apart from the ACL), was claiming victory over the (voluntary as far as we know) resignation of Professor Kuruvilla George from the Victorian Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission. For those who haven’t been following Australian Politics (and I completely get that), Professor Kuruvilla George co-signed a submission to the Australian Senate Enquiry into equal marriage suggesting that children should be brought up in a heterosexual unit as that was the most appropriate family unit and that no studies have ever found that having same sex parents is good for children. Yes, I know.
The submission was listed as “Doctors for the Family” and is available here.
The big problem for Professor Kuruvilla George, being his role as a board member for an organisation that promotes equality and acts in cases of discrimination against protected attributes, one of which is sexual orientation. He is also the Deputy Chief Psychiatrist for Victoria. According to The Age today, his resignation was voluntary and had nothing to do with his submission to the Senate Enquiry which was done in as a private individual (though signed with: MBBS MPhil FRCPsych FRANZCP after his name – which means he was signing it in a medical capacity at least – as far as I read it).
I was going to talk about the ACL’s press release and their suggestion that all research on queer families was bunk, but the delightful Chrys beat me too it, so I’ll point you at her work here, and another article which debunks the authors that the ACL are relying on here.
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Posted: February 9, 2012 at 11:00 pm | Tags: equal marriage, lgbtiq, politics, racism, WTF
This probably doesn’t come as a surprise, after all they are a religious (though ecumenical) organisation dedicated to “the family” whatever that means to them. That in itself is an interesting thing, family is really quite a nebulous term, and I am not convinced that narrowing the definition to the current idea of a nuclear family does anyone any good. Surely families are more than two opposite sex individuals and their 2.4 children living in suburban Australia. Surely family includes grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, your best friends, siblings, your best friend’s kids (if they have any), your neighbour, nephews, nieces, and anyone else that you consider part of your family.
But anyway, the Australian Family Association is all about the rigidly defined nuclear family. One woman, one man, and any children that they may have during that relationship. They appear to be a bit fuzzy on children that aren’t from that relationship, and that’s one of the points which will I’ll use to nail them in their “Arguments defending children’s rights over same-sex couples’ rights” (yes that’s right. And the only reason I’m linking to it is to prove that I’m not making it up).
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Posted: December 17, 2011 at 3:00 pm | Tags: body, body image, equal marriage, Feminism, lgbtiq, marriage, politics, Religion
Stuff I’ve been reading about the place:
Stephanie Bolt’s (Andrew Bolt’s sister)’s piece: I want marriage equality for all
Some gays and lesbians view their relationships as equal to those of straight people. But I know of others who would admit to feeling “lesser” or, even if they don’t, are fed up with receiving negative physical, verbal or other signals from the world around them.
Burt Humburg’s journey to outing himself as gay: ‘There’s only one Burt’
“(Suppressing the desires) worked for a while. … but I started to become quietly insane,” Humburg said. “My craziness was getting worse and worse and worse. I was a jerk.”
He said he briefly considered suicide.
“Within 10 seconds I concluded that was not the answer,” Humburg said. “I just thought, ‘You’re a straight-A student headed (into) medicine at some point. What are you gonna do – throw that all away just because of some Bronze Age understandings of the Bible and human sexuality?’ Let’s just take this slow and see how it goes.
“So I stopped fighting it. And as soon as I allowed (homosexuality) to be a consideration – bam. I knew.”
A fascinating article on the Christian basis of the understanding of marriage in Australia: Should Marriage Be A Life Sentence?
In order to preclude the legal recognition of same-sex marriages, the 2004 Bill proposed to incorporate the common law definition of marriage set out by Lord Penzance in the case of Hyde noted above, which involved the status of Mormon polygamous unions made in America. Lord Penzance noted: “marriage, as understood in Christendom, may for this purpose be defined as the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others”. The words, “as understood in Christendom”, do not appear in section 46 of the Marriage Act nor in section 43 of the Family Law Act. The Hyde definition is otherwise intact in those sections.
Sady Doyle’s article: The Girl’s Guide to Staying Safe Online
For years, it’s been an open secret that having a visibly female online identity – especially if one writes about sexism – is a personal security risk. Highly visible bloggers such as Jessica Valenti report receiving hate mail every day. Some have been subject to campaigns aimed at getting them fired. This doesn’t only happen to high-profile feminists, or women; some people, including men, have been harassed at work simply for commenting on the wrong blog. But it is a gendered phenomenon: W.H.O.A. reports that, in 2010, 73% of cyberstalking victims were female.
A great article on body image and how large women with breasts can been seen as problematic in the office: It Happened to Me: I Got in Trouble for Bringing My Boobs to the Office
At one point in the “conversation,” I’d tried to point out that my dress wasn’t any different from what the other women in the department wore. In fact, it was pretty common knowledge one of the other women had a certain outfit she wore when she wanted something from her boss. I, uh, did not mention that to the department head. That was when my department head told me, in uncomfortable and tentative wording, that the issue was really my large boobs.
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Posted: December 3, 2011 at 11:08 pm | Tags: equal marriage, Feminism, lgbt, lgbtiq, women
You know, with the exception of scientific laws, every time I hear someone say the above, I know that I have ever just heard or am about to hear, something that is complete bollocks.
So today the Australian Labour Party voted in favour of “gay” marriage (from here on in referred to as equal marriage). The ALP national platform now supports equal marriage, though sadly the conscience vote still holds. I don’t understand how elected representatives are allowed to vote with their conscience and not with the will of their electorate, clearly that’s just me (and several million other Australians).
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Posted: June 6, 2011 at 10:38 pm | Tags: ACL, Christianity, equal marriage, lgbtiq, media, minority rights, privilege, Religion
I wasn’t going to blog about this, I really wasn’t. Of the three topics I had handed to me on Friday (swearing fines, Penny Wong being miaowed at, and Rip Roll), I decided to focus my efforts somewhere other than this topic – as it had been covered very nicely in the media as well as elsewhere. But then the ACL stuck their head up again today, and I can’t not smack them for it.
Lyle Shelton, an apologist for the ACL it seems, had a piece published on ABC’s The Drum, today called, “Abusive labels and slurs no substitute for real debate” (user comments afterwards really good). Excuse me while I take this apart.
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