Mannie De Saxe, Lesbian and Gay Solidarity, Melbourne

PO Box 1675

Preston South

Vic 3072

Email: josken_at_zipworld_com_au

Web: http://www.zipworld.com.au/~josken

I refer to your letter dated 6 May 2007 (sic) (REF: MF:HE) in which you write to advise of the Rudd government’s attempts to placate homosexual Australians by having “some discriminations” removed, while leaving others untouched.

As Gertrude Stein might have said: “Discrimination is discrimination is discrimination”!

Reform is not what is required – equality is what is required, and an end to discrimination and homophobia.

It is not yet clear on what grounds the federal government intends, yet again, to interfere with the ACT’s attempts to bring equality to its citizens, but it does show that the Rudd government is just as determined as the Howard government to placate the religious right and leave marriage as between a man and a woman. This is, in any event, a biblical interpretation in a secular state and has no place in the 21^st century in Australia.

The following definitions might help you and your government to understand the English language a little better:

Concise Oxford Dictionary, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990:

Homophobia: a hatred or fear of homosexuals

Discrimination:  unfavourable treatment based on prejudice, especially regarding race, colour or sex

Equality: the state of being equal.

Gay, lesbian, transgender and HIV/AIDS people demand rights which are the same for all members of the Australian population, in other words, equal rights.

Equal rights are not special rights.

The reforms of legislation by this federal government provide limited "equality" which ends as soon as the current attorney general, no less than the previous one, says marriage is between a man and a woman.

The religious right has got this government where it wants it, that is, no partnership rights because it will break up the religious aspects of a man owning a woman and will be a desecration of the marriage ceremony! In 2008 the divorce rate is at an all time high with more than one in three marriages breaking up after a few years, and many couples living together and choosing not to marry at all!

What gay, lesbian and transgender people want is equal rights, not special rights, and although I heartily disapprove of marriage as an institution, if some couples want such certificated approval, it should be their right to have it.

 
What this government has done is to provide a sop to those who think they have achieved law reform as recommended by the report of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission report which advised of 58 areas of inequality in the law, but there have since been discovered to be over 100 items.

Discrimination against gays, lesbians, transgenders continues to be government policy, no matter which party is in government, and none can be trusted to provide equality! Homophobia is alive and well and certainly living in Canberra!

Mannie De Saxe, Lesbian and Gay Solidarity, Melbourne