Tag: equal marriage

New financial year Linkspam!

I’ve been distracted with my current Cook Book Project so haven’t been blogging as much, and this linkspam is pretty much the entire month of June, and the first few days of July.

Today, I discovered a new blog, thanks to @DeadlyBloggers on Twitter called, “Rantings of an Aboriginal Feminist“, and I love her most recent post, “A total and hairy non-issue“:

My own personal journey with depilating is probably similar to other women, particularly in western countries. I had grown up noticing my mother shave her legs, and seeing women with smooth legs on TV and all around me, and at what is probably a ridiculously young age (about 8 ) I deemed my own legs too hairy and shaved them for the first time. I cut them to bits with Dad’s rusty old Gillette Blue 2, and didn’t try that again for another year or so. I’d call my “need” to shave an “unconscious social intervention” as it was based on observation and “normalising messages” hitting me from a very young age. But what was a completely conscious one was when mum took me aside at about 11 or 12 and showed me how to shave my armpits. From that point onwards, I was paranoid of raising my arm if I hadn’t shaved. It wasn’t mum’s fault as nearly every girl in my school seemed to be in the same boat, if not then, then over the coming years.

After a spike in traffic on my blog, and specifically regarding my post about Dan Savage’s biphobia, I wondered what he’d done this time.  Apparently he’d used a derogatory comment in relation to GOProud, a coalition of LGBT Republicans and their straight allies.  *trigger warning for homophobic language* From the Huffington Post, “Dan Savage and the Other, Uglier F-Word“.

A great article discussing the myth that bisexuals don’t exist called, “Gay or Straight, Most People Think Bisexuality Isn’t Real” from the Philly Post:

There are many people who feel attraction to both genders—or who are indifferent to gender entirely, who are just attracted to people and deal with the gendered parts when things get intimate. How is it possible that high-schoolers think it’s chic (though a little passe) to be bi, but our mouthpieces of popular celebrity culture don’t know what to do with famous people who have fluid sexuality?

Even after all these years of progress and activism related to sexual orientation and gender, there remains a core disbelief among gay and straight that bisexuality exists. Some think it’s a phase girls go through in college; others think it’s a bullshit position a guy takes because he’s afraid to be gay. It’s not validated on either side of the aisle, so to speak. So bisexuals disappear into headlines: Frenchie Davis is a lesbian. Score 1 for the absolutist team.

Another article on bisexuality, this time from the Windy City Media Group titled, “Series on bisexuality looks to document diversity in sexual behaviors“:

Bisexuality is sometimes looked on with confusion from both the heterosexual and homosexual communities. Researchers from Indiana University conducted a series of studies recently to explore how the stigma and stereotypes of behaviorally bisexual individuals stands up to reality, and how these men and women are actually living out their sexual lives.

“I was really surprised to find, among some of the guys, how they weren’t open at all about their sexuality,” he said. “For a lot of them, it had been the first time they’d ever talked to someone about engaging in sexual behavior with both men and women. There was a lot of stigma, even shame from both gay and straight friends and family members about bisexuality that was above and beyond just typical stigma. For some of them it really did seem like they were clearly linking that with having mental health issues, like feeling depressed or anxious or not comfortable with their sexuality because they felt like they were sort of the only ones. So in terms of the needs for actually doing this type of research, it was really validated.”

No Place for Sheep wrote a piece about “Belief versus human rights“, in relation to Gillard’s (Aussie PM) personal beliefs about marriage equality impacting the human rights of the LGBTIQ community.  I recommend this post even though the BTIQ part of the spectrum are missing somewhat in the post.

Be that as it may, the fights led me to thinking about belief. While I agree that everyone is entitled to their beliefs, I don’t agree that everyone is entitled to act on those beliefs to the detriment of others. Once a belief is extrapolated from the personal realm and used to determine the lives of others it is no longer personal, it is political.

Personal belief can legitimately determine the course of one’s own life. If you don’t believe same-sex marriage is right, for example, then don’t make a same-sex marriage. Nobody in our country will force you into an arrangement that powerfully disturbs your moral sensibility.

What disturbs me, however, is the argument that personal beliefs ought to be set apart from the interrogations we are at liberty to apply to all other human processes. The personal belief is elevated to the sacred, inspiring respect and reverence simply because it is a personal belief, and regardless of its substance. While I find this bizarre, hinting as it does at some transcendental exterior governance, I have little problem with it, as long as the belief remains in the realm of the personal. When it becomes prescriptive, I argue that it is no longer protected from scrutiny and critique by reverence.

It turns out that Mitt Romney doesn’t like bisexuals or trans* people (well there is a surprise) to the point where those words in a anti-bullying guide resulted in the guide not being produced/endorsed by his office, “No mention of ‘bisexual,’ ‘transgender’ under Romney“:

Former governor Mitt Romney’s administration in 2006 blocked publication of a state antibullying guide for Massachusetts public schools because officials objected to use of the terms “bisexual’’ and “transgender’’ in passages about protecting certain students from harassment, according to state records and interviews with current and former state officials.

Romney aides said publicly at the time that publication of the guide had been delayed because it was a lengthy document that required further review. But an e-mail authored in May of that year by a high-ranking Department of Public Health official – and obtained last week by the Globe through a public records request – reflected a different reason.

Two pieces, one from Novel Activist, “Martha Nussbaum: Objectification, Sexualisation and Conservative Hypocrisy” and the other from No Place for Sheep, “What is objectification, anyway?“:

There’s an almost constant stream of allegations of objectification through sexualisation currently being made in Western society. These are leveled by concerned citizens against much popular culture, and based largely on images of women that culture produces. These allegations presume an objectifying gaze, that is, they insist the viewer will inevitably reduce women portrayed in certain ways to objects to be used for sexual gratification, rather than seeing them as equal human beings. Clothing, facial expressions and postures are used as signifiers of objectification, as well as language.

The signifiers chosen by concerned citizens are based on a Judeo-Christian perception of the adult female body as unruly, dangerous and indecent, and requiring concealment except in specific circumstances such as marriage and other committed monogamous relationships. Clothing that reveals too much of the body’s “private” zones is regarded as transgressing moral codes, as are postures and language that imply female sexual desire, and/or stimulate male “lust.”

An introductory post and a follow up three post series on “Christian Fundamentalist Homophobia: It Really Is About Fear” (introduction, part 1, part 2, part 3) from the phoenix and the olive branch *trigger warning for homophobic language and hate speech  (excerpts from all four posts):

I was raised to be homophobic. Oh, my church had lots of ways to deflect the label when it was applied to us, but deep down, I was afraid. The other kids were afraid, too. When pressed, we would spew lines like “hate the sin, love the sinner” or “I’m not afraid of gay people, I just disagree with their lifestyle.” (That one confuses me now: how can you “disagree” with someone else’s life? It’s not about disagreement, it’s about disapproval.) There’s always this old favorite, too: “They don’t even know they’re in sin; they’re deceived. We need to pray for them.” Thing is, all of this masks a genuine, visceral, inculcated fear. I wasn’t raised to have a vague, condescending, pious pity for LGBTQ people. I was raised to be violently afraid of them.

In my church, homophobia was a matter of course. We didn’t spend a lot of time hashing out the Scriptural arguments against homosexuality. Occasionally Paul and Leviticus were cited, but more often, sermons would rattle out evidence of modern depravity along these lines: “…and Satan has so perverted this generation that it thinks there’s nothing wrong with divorce, abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and girls throwing their babies in trash cans and doing drugs.” Defiance of gender roles was just one of the most obvious signs of demonic control.

Whether or not my church explicitly intended for me to receive this message, I understood homosexuality as one of an array of perversions. Homosexuality, promiscuity, pedophilia drug addiction, alcoholism, cheating, self-harm, unwed pregnancy and abortion were not treated as separate issues. I was afraid of gay people because I was taught that it was impossible to be gay or lesbian without partaking in all of the above.

These rhetorical strategies also reveal fundamentalist Christianity’s basic approach to LGBTQ identities: they are symptoms of an overactive sexuality. The demon that leads men to pornography and women to prostitution is the same one that causes sexual attraction to break out of the appropriate boxes. Fundamentalists don’t fully accept LGBTQ identities as categories. Instead, they see them as temporary stopping points on the way to total depravity. Hence their slippery slope arguments and their conviction that you can “pray away the gay.” The implication is that if you don’t “pray away the gay,” you’re mere moments away from self-harm and child molestation. [emphasis in original]

I have one final thing to offer to the “hate the sin, love the sinner” crowd from the other side of the fence they built to keep us illegal Christians out:

Unconditional love does not mean loving someone while disapproving of their actions. It means forsaking the right to disapprove. You cannot love who I am and hate what I do. What I do shows you who I am.If you choose to love a figment of your imagination, some idea of who I might become, then you love only your own mind, and what you hate is me. [emphasis in original]

Another post from the phoenix and the olive branch, “Bedroom Submission, Birth Control and Tokophobia” on the harm of Christian Patriarchy on women and the author herself *trigger warning for discussion of rape*:

Worse yet, in my church, women were told we were merely “incubators” for male seed. A man’s children were his; a woman’s children were also his. There was effectively no difference between a man’s children from another marriage or the children a man and woman had together. All belonged to the father. The mother was just the vice president: a useful source of authority in her husband’s absence, but ultimately powerless.

Pregnancy and babies, to me, signaled the dehumanization of women. Once women became mothers, they were trapped forever, at the mercy of their husbands. I looked at pregnant bellies and I saw swollen bee stings inflicted by aggressive overlords. In darker moments, I imagined myself committing suicide if I became pregnant. Abortion would save my life (a desperate realization that shocked me a little bit), but I would be cast out on my face. Pregnancy therefore looked like the end of the road. A death sentence. Once the wedding bells rang, I was a soul without a body in the eyes of the church. [emphasis in original]

 

 

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Knowing the mind of God

I am regularly amazed that some religious folk claim to know the mind of their god.  I’m specifically referring to the Judeo-Christian god at this point, I have had insufficient exposure to adherents of other religions to know if there any people who claim to speak on behalf of their god/s (though given people I wouldn’t be surprised).

The god of the Old and New Testament clearly states in the Bible that:

8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.

9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55: 8 – 9 New Living Translation

 

33 Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!

34 For who can know the Lord’s thoughts?
Who knows enough to give him advice?

35 And who has given him so much
that he needs to pay it back?

Romans 11: 33-35 New Living Translation

So clearly the mind of at the very least the Christian god is unknowable, inscrutable and unlike any adherent’s own mind, and yet so many people claim to know and even act as if they know, exactly what their god wants.

I’ve always been confused by what god is actually like (even when I was a Christian), because the Bible is rather contradictory about that, god was jealous, loving, peace, all knowing, all powerful, all present, the light, vengeful, etc (nice list here), so clearly knowing what god thought about on any particular topic was impossible.

The Bible itself is contradictory, condemning queer people in one part and then celebrating them in others (the story of Ruth, the story of David and Saul), and then Jesus who allegedly lived during the Roman empire when same-sex relationships were part of society.  Nowhere did Jesus (who was allegedly the son of God) actually condemn same-sex relationships, even though they would have been practised by the Roman occupiers of Jerusalem.  Those who point to the Bible to condemn queer relationships tend to focus on two main parts of the Bible, Leviticus (while ignoring ALL the other parts of Leviticus that no longer apply in this modern day and age), and the various letters of Paul (while ignoring his other commentary, for the most part, on the role of women both in the church and in relationships, and how the end times were imminent).

So I do not understand how lobbyists from the Australian [un]Christian Lobby, or how someone like Archbishop Peter Jensen can claim, or appear to claim, that they speak not only for themselves and their own fears about queer people, but for the deity they claim to believe in – the one who they should well know they cannot speak for.

If you believe in a deity of some description, I don’t really have a problem with your personal belief, but I do have a big problem with any attempt to shift that personal belief onto the lives of other people because you believe that your deity would be much happier if segments of the population lived miserable and unhappy lives.  I have big problems when people’s personal beliefs are treated like the be-all and end-all of all ethical and moral existence, so that in effect the faith you ascribe to is the only source of morality in the world.  I have a big problem when personal belief is used to restrict the human rights of other people – because you believe your god (who you cannot know the thoughts of) would be much happier if queer people couldn’t marry their partner of choice.

As I have, and as many other people have, pointed out before – religion has been used to defend slavery, defend not granting equal rights for women, defend racism, defend arranged marriages, defend refusing birth control, defend not providing abortion services, etc – and these things have slowly passed and changed as society has matured.

And as society continues to mature, more will change.  Queer people will get the equal rights they seek, and the versus in the Bible that condemn them will be assigned to irrelevancy just as most of Leviticus is now.  This change is inevitable and is the right thing to do.  Those who cling to homophobia are frightened of change, and I can understand that, but if you profess to love the god of the Bible, then you have to trust that change happens for a reason and god’s inscrutable plan is the way forward.  That the god you believe in is in control (because that’s what you believe) and that you shouldn’t fight his/her wishes.

I don’t believe in any god, I believe in doing the right thing because it is right not because I will get some future reward or punishment otherwise.  I believe in granting human rights to all regardless of their sexual orientation, race, religion, political opinion, place of origin, etc.  My rights will not be diminished by other people having access to the same rights.  There is not a finite amount of human rights in the world, which would mean that granting some to a disadvantaged group will take away any of my own rights (it might remove some of my privilege but that’s another story).

It’s time that those who campaign so tirelessly against the equal rights of others and claim that they are doing it for their god, sat down, took a deep breath, and considered whether or not they are acting for their own personal interests and whether they are indeed following the precepts of their own god.  Time to examine the plank in their eye before checking the splinter in mine, as well as considering how Jesus treated the disadvantaged of his own time as a lesson on how perhaps you should treat the disadvantaged of today.

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I support Marriage Equality

I also support “equal marriage” and “same-sex marriage”.  I do not support “gay marriage” because that excludes the bisexuals, trans* and intersex individuals that want to marry a same-sex partner.  I am also really sick of reading about “gay marriage” in Fairfax publications.  Today’s two articles:

MP changes view on gay marriage

Despite Mr Gray’s change of heart, it remains almost certain that the vote on two private members bills seeking to legalise gay marriage will fail.

The opposition has banned a conscience vote and all MPs and senators have been told to vote against gay marriage.

One member of the Left – who holds a marginal seat supports gay marriage but has yet to decide how he will vote – was eager for the vote to be held sooner given the level of emotion it was sparking on both sides of the debate. [emphasis added]

and the second:

Labor to fast-track gay marriage vote

Labor is trying to bring gay marriage to a parliamentary vote sooner rather than later — probably in August — to prevent it diverting attention from other issues and causing the government continuing grief. [emphasis added]

And over the past few days:

Tuesday: Gay marriage debate brought forward

Monday: Greens want conscience vote on gay marriage & Churches lay down law on gay marriage as vote nears & House to debate gay marriage bills

Sunday: Wong says gay marriage will come & MPs abused over gay marriage & Pro-gay marriage MPs get hate mail

I’ve already written about how “gay and lesbian” is not an umbrella term, clearly this is something that Fairfax have failed to grasp, and it is very disappointing.  Every time Fairfax writes about “gay marriage” they are excluding bisexuals, trans* and intersex people who want to marry their same-sex partner.  Every time Fairfax writes about “gay marriage” they participate in the continued erasure of bisexuals, trans* and intersex people and their same-sex relationships.  Every time Fairfax writes about “gay marriage” bisexuals, trans* and intersex people see another article that is not for them and they potentially lose audience.

The most disappointing thing is that many of the quotes used in the articles above from various institutions and individuals, refers to “same-sex marriage” or “marriage equality” or even “equal marriage”.  It’s Fairfax that are going out of their way to refer to the campaign for marriage equality as “gay marriage” not the people or institutions they are speaking to.  This really makes no sense to me.

I don’t buy the “well it’s shorter than ‘marriage equality'” because they’re not limited in characters.  I don’t buy the “well everyone knows what ‘gay marriage’ is but the other terms are confusing” argument, because the individuals and institutions they’re quoting are using “same-sex marriage” etc, and clearly people understand what that is.  I honestly believe that Fairfax are being lazy and cannot be bothered being inclusive.  This does effectively mean that Fairfax are not interested in maintaining an audience of bisexual, trans* and intersex individuals, because they’re not catering to them.  Now I know Fairfax can do better, and I’m happy to take them through an inclusive of the bisexual, trans* and intersex community 101 if necessary, though I will not speak on behalf of the trans* or intersex community, but can happily point them at resources.

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Letter to the editor of The Australian

I am very disappointed and upset that I was so badly misrepresented in the article written by Ean Higgins and published in The Australian 21 May 2012.  There are factual inaccuracies and inferences in the article which I would like corrected.

The headline was a deliberate attempt to mislead readers into thinking my submission to the senate supported polyamorous marriage when in fact it did no such thing.  My submission, which has been publicly viewable on my personal blog since 12 March 2012, was in favour of equal marriage for same sex attracted couples, similar to many other submissions in favour.  There was no mention of polyamory, and in my discussions with Ean Higgins I believed that I was clear that my submission was not in favour of introducing polyamory, but in favour of marriage equality for same sex attracted couples.  I am not championing polyamorous marriage.

Furthermore, I do not speak for the poly community in Australia and any suggestion that I do so is a complete fabrication.

I would like these corrections to be noted by The Australia as the inference that I am lobbying for polyamory to the current Senate Committee on Marriage Equality is both factually incorrect and not representative of my submission.

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The ACL fail to surprise me

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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The Australian Family Association are bi/homophobic

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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Linkspam of the gods December 2011

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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“It has always been that way since the dawn of humanity.”

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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Rip and Roll – the continuation

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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