"In the early sixties, Ed Koch ran for local office in New York City promising to legalize sodomy, yet when the Greenwich Village legislator made it into office years later, he launched a campaign against gay bars and met with the chief of police to "rid the area" of homosexuals "and other undesirables." These were early signs that for politicians representing districts with vocal and visible numbers of LGBT people, it is politically pragmatic to do just enough to corral their votes into a campaign by promising support, but when the rubber hits the road the Democrats are willing to toss gays under a bus." Quotation on page 142 of SEXUALITY AND SOCIALISM - by Sherry Wolf - published by Haymarket Books 2009
Religions seem to be the basis of the homophobia confronted by gay, lesbian and transgender people around the world.
When one reads about the cases which get to the courts with all the horrifying details of gruesome murders, bashings and vicious attacks made by usually gangs of several young men - always young men - aged between 15 and 35 - one is so appalled that it is nauseating to continue finding out the graphic details.
Unfortunately the courts in various countries have been known to accept the "panic defence" story used by many of these attackers to help them get off with light sentences or, in some cases, no sentences at all, when they are found not guilty.
The statistics of murders from the USA, UK and Australia, to name some of the countries where some of the worst atrocities have occurred, should alarm the authorities in those countries. Instead, they rely on the teachings of their religious institutions to give reasons why homosexuality is such a crime, and why those who "practise" these vile lifestyles are deserving of hell on earth.
10 AUGUST 2003
17 AUGUST 2003
I think Terry Lane, in accusing churches of a lack of vision when they "avert their gays" (Perspective, Sunday Age 10 August 2003), needs to take another look.
The argument about homosexuality is only the catalyst: the real issue is, as Archbishop Peter Jensen pointed out about a month ago, about the authority of the Bible.
What does the Bible teach about sexuality? It teaches that God created human beings as male and female with the end that they would become man and wife and be fruitful and multiply.
God does not make a separate class of beings called homosexuals.
Homosexuality is an attitudinal and activity choice. If God had wanted us to think that homosexuality was a valid alternative, He would have said so.
People who think of themselves as homosexuals are not necessarily bad people. They are people who have made a bad choice in one area of their lives.
The challenge of Christianity is to stop making bad choices and start making good choices based on God's word - choices that will eventually lead to eternal happiness in heaven.
24 AUGUST 2003
27 AUGUST 2003
In response to some of the particularly obnoxious, dangerous and homophobic - and, it must be admitted, in part hilarious - letters from bigots belonging to one of the major groups who recently vehemently opposed the "age of consent" legislation passed by the New South Wales government, giving equal age of consent to homosexual males and heterosexual males i.e. 16 years old, Lesbian and Gay Solidarity sent the following letter to the Sunday Age on 27 August 2003:
FOR MORE ON CENSORSHIP, CLICK ON TO THE FOLLOWING LINK:CENSORSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
The week after the above letter appeared, a predictable response from the previously mentioned religious bigot appeared, saying what a sad outlook on life this was. The bigot then went on to say that we would have liked to have lived in the Soviet Union where religion was banned , with not a lot of freedom there for anyone.
Roger Marks (Your Say 21/9) claims that “God did not make homosexuals. He made us with a free will which He will not violate”.
Does Marks have a hotline to his “God”, calling “him” “He”? Maybe “he” is “she”? Marks doesn't let a good story get in the way of the truth. It seems that “it was essential to perpetrate as truth the myth of 'born that way' to get acceptance”. Does he mean perpetuate?
Religious bigots need to perpetuate as myth the truth of “born that way” so that their homophobia can perpetuate ( perpetrate?) hate crimes, violence and murder of gays, lesbians and transgender people.
Of course “God” didn't make homosexuals, just as he/she didn't make heterosexuals - they all evolved.
Who has Marks asked for 20 years to produce evidence he requires to “prove” to him that homosexuals invented themselves? The blank sheet he has remained with is the blank sheet of his ignorance and bigotry. Anyway, who cares?
We don't need acceptance from religious bigots - we need acceptance in legislation removing discrimination and providing us with equality under the law, ensuring religious organisations aren't exempt, thus allowing them continuing discrimination.
Mannie De Saxe
An article by Ryan Heath of the University of Technology, Sydney on the homophobia of the Chancellor Sir Gerard Brennan is of such importance that the whole article has been reproduced in full and can be found on Fear and loathing on university council
A report was published at the end of 2003 in New South Wales called "YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO HIDE TO BE SAFE" - A report on Homophobic Hostilities and Violence Against Gay Men and Lesbians in New South Wales.
The Executive Summary Conclusions state:
Gay men and lesbians in NSW continue to experience high levels of homophobic abuse, harassment or violence. The percentage of the current survey respondents who had experienced some form of homophobic abuse in the past year (56%) was almost exactly the same as was found in the "Out of the Blue" survey in 1994/1995.
The fact that nearly 80% of repondents said that they would be prepared to report homophobic abuse or violence to the Police indicates that over time there has been a significant movement in the likelihood of gay men and lesbians seeking Police assistance; however, there remain various reasons why some may hesitate to go to the Police. These include fears of possibly insensitive or homophobic Police responses; a belief that if the perpetrator is unknown there is little the Police can do; concern about getting caught up in an investigation process that could itself be unpleasant or distressing; fears by Indigenous people that the Police may see them as the guilty rather than the injured party; and fear that in involving the Police you may risk 'outing' yourself to your family or others.
Both the survey and the focus group research highlighted the 'trade-offs' that lesbians and gay men may face between openness and safety. In general those who took part in the research felt likely to be at greater risk of abuse, harassment or violence if they were frank and open about their sexuality; concealment and denial, however, carried their own negative consequences.
3 OCTOBER 2004
Sunday, October 03, 2004
This means ensuring that the Greens have the majority of the senate seats which will give them the balance of power in the upper house of the Australian parliament.
If we don't do that, there is a distinct possibility that the Coalition parties will have controlling power by virtue of their unholy alliance with the Family First party which is a christian fundamentalist group who deserve to be knocked into oblivion at this election, together with Fred Nile's christian democrats party, which is neither christian nor democratic!!
The issue of same sex marriage was the issue which put the major parties more into coalition than any other move in the federal parliament in many years - well, other than children overboard, border protection, war in Iraq and numerous other lies we have been subjected to! The whole progress of the Marriage Amendment Bill was hasty, undemocratic, un-debated, gagged, and hurried through and made into law in case two or three homosexual couples in Australia would go to the High Court and challenge the laws to have their overseas marriages recognised in Australia.
When you ask yourself what threat this was to marriage in Australia, when in any event one in three marriages end in divorce, when marriage as such is a dying institution, when more and more couples live in de facto or equivalent relationships, you have to conclude that the answers lie in the fact that the fundamentalist christian organisations in Australia wield a disproportionate amount of weight in parliamentary lobbying strength. Both major parties were present at the rally in Canberra to oppose the recognition of same sex marriages in Australia, and showed how homophobic the parliamentarians really are.
It is time for homosexuals to become politically active again as they were in the 70s and 80s when they fought for the rights which heterosexuals take for granted as their given right.
Vote Howard out on 9 October and ensure that if Mark Latham and his party are elected to govern Australia, they have a senate in which minor parties will hold the balance of power allowing neither the Coalition nor the ALP to control that chamber and thus to ensure that there is still a modicum of democracy left in Australia.
Also, if you live in Melbourne Ports, make sure that the sitting member of Melbourne Ports/Israel is kicked out and that his opposite number in the Liberal Party is also not elected.
There is also the possibility that Wentworth in New South Wales will be lost by the Liberals because the sitting member lost preselection for the Liberals and is standing as an independent.
There are several other seats which are marginal and which can be decided by gay, lesbian and transgender votes. Use your power and change the face of Australian politics for ever!!!
# posted by Mannie : 11:45 PM
11 OCTOBER 2004
The following article appeared in The Age, Melbourne, on 11 October 2004, following the Federal elections on 9 October 2004, and reflecting on the way the respective parties allocated their preferences for the Senate seats in Victoria. Those gay. lesbian and transgender people who voted for the ALP on the supposition that they would allocate their preferences to the gay friendly Greens have been, once again, let down by the party which was trying to get the religious ALP member of the Senate Jacinta Collins, elected to the sixth Victorian seat. However, because of the preference allocation, Jacinta Collins was eliminated and the Family First party won the seat.
Now read the article and see how ill advised many in the gay, lesbian and transgender communities were by those telling them to vote for the ALP:
21 JULY 2005
COPY BEING SENT TO TENNIS AUSTRALIA
Homophobia in the tennis world is reaching new ?heights? or depths as perceived from our end of the spectrum.
Lleyton Hewitt is the latest in a long line of tennis players to use homophobia against people they have taken a dislike to or object to on all sorts of grounds. At the Davis Cup match in Sydney during the weekend of 16-17 July 2005 against Argentinean Guillermo Coria, Hewitt shouted ?Who is this poof??
A few years ago, in 2002, Margaret Court stated that lesbian tennis players ?snared? their counterparts into homosexuality. She was no doubt still smarting from her defeat by lesbian Billie-Jean King many years earlier.
Also in 2002 the tennis player?s father Damir Dokic stated he would kill himself if his tennis champion daughter Jelena came out.
At Wimbledon in July 2001 the Croatian tennis player Goran Ivenisevic made anti-gay comments about a judge. He said, ?Then I hit another second serve, huge. And that ball was on the line, was not even close. And that guy, he looks like a faggot little bit, you know. This hair all over him. He call it. I couldn?t believe he did it.? He had previously told a reporter: ?Hey, sometimes I watch the TV, and then I see the guys when they throw the rackets. They throw it like a faggot, you know. They throw it not to throw it.?
This homophobia in tennis has just got to stop. It is not good enough for Hewitt to apologise, the damage has been done.
If it is good enough for Hewitt, Court, Ivanisevic, Dokic and others to come out with these horrible attacks, then it is good enough for us to demand not only apologies, but educational programmes to stop this happening again. The harm that is done is that it is seen to be acceptable to the community at large and as a consequence homophobic bashings, murders, verbal abuse, suicides caused by homophobia continue unabated.
Tennis Australia must ensure that this does not happen again. We demand public apologies from Hewitt, Tennis Australia and all those who condone this conduct or turn the proverbial blind eye in national and international sport.
Just as racism is unacceptable, so too is homophobia. We live in an ongoing and ever-increasing climate of homophobia due to ever-increasing conservatism and influence by the religious right.
It is worthy of note that this incident was not reported in the mainstream media.
Stop it now before it is too late.
------- End of forwarded message -------
26 JULY 2005
Australian Communications and Media Authority,
PO Box 78 Belconnen ACT 2616
Mannie De Saxe and Kendall Lovett, Lesbian and Gay Solidarity, Melbourne
PO Box 1675 Preston South Vic 3072 Phone: (03) 9471 4878
Email: josken_at_zipworld_com_au Web: http://www.zipworld.com.au/~josken
26 July 2005
As a consequence, gay, lesbian, transgender people and people living with HIV/AIDS are being denied their basic human rights.
Religious bodies foster hatred of groups which are not part of their religious dispensations.
Sports people - particularly in tennis (Copy of our letter to Tennis Australia is attached) - have been articulating their homophobia in the last few years with little or no consequences for their behaviour.
Added to their verbal abuse, both on and off the tennis courts, is the abuse by radio and television personalities who have behaved disgracefully and the organizations which employ them believe that these people have done nothing wrong.
Not only have they done wrong, but the consequences of their behaviour are immeasurable. Their words are assumed to give carte blanche to young people, both in schools and other institutions, and out of schools, to go and bash a poofter, either verbally or physically, resulting in traumas that may last a life time, if the assaults haven't left dead bodies in their wake, as they often do.
The time has long passed when we can ignore the lack of responses from official bodies and organizations and regulating authorities who fail to discipline those involved in the ongoing homophobia.
JOHN LAWS, STEVE PRICE, SAM NEWMAN - HOMOPHOBIA ON AIR: There have been a few arguments about these three people in the gay media. It is being suggested that they are entertainers and they say what they do in order to create controversy for their programmes, sponsors, radio and/or television stations in order to draw in listeners/viewers. These sorts of discussions are flawed because there are anti-vilification laws in many states in Australia. The homophobic attacks by Laws, Price and Newman result in abuse, violence and often worse because the people perpetrating these assaults believe they have community support for what they have done which is why there are anti-vilification laws. Often this has proved to be the case when some assaults and murders have gone to trial, only to have cases dismissed or treated lightly due to "panic defence" and similar arguments being put forward. Members of the glt communities must protest and continue protesting, to stop these attacks on our human rights, attacks which, if carried out on heterosexuals, would lead to immediate outcries from the community at large!
Apart from John Laws, Steve Price and Sam Newman, dating back to last year and early this year, the most recent "on air" manifestations have come from Eddie Maguire of the Nine Network, and also Network Ten which has a programme called Big Brother, both programmes of which went to air on Monday 18 July 2005 with "Nancy Boy", "Poofta and Poof" expressions being used repeatedly. These programmes were followed by the 60Minutes Channel 9 programme on 24 July 2005.
TELEVISION HOMOPHOBIA ?CHANNEL 9 AND CHANNEL 10:
The following is an extract from the Sixty Minutes programme on Channel Nine on the night of Sunday 24 July 2005:
SHEIKH KHALID YASIN: If you prefer the name of somebody on your clothes other than the name of the Muslims, if you prefer the clothing of the Kaffers other than the clothing of the Muslims, most of the names that's on most of those clothing is faggots, homosexuals and lesbians. God is very straightforward about this - not we Muslims, not subjective, the Sharia is very clear about it, the punishment for homosexuality, bestiality or anything like that is death. We don't make any excuses about that, it's not our law - it's the Koran.
PETER OVERTON: And this on why young Muslims shouldn't attend university.
SHEIKH KHALID YASIN: The university is a gateway for deviation. You forget your Islamic direction. Now you have become compromised through some kind of intellectuality.
The Prime Minister of Australia has been very vocal in condemning the Sheikh's comments about terrorism and bombings, but so far he seems very mute when it comes to the abuse of homosexuals ? why?
If these people had all used racist and sexist epithets in their programmes or in their sports, they would be called to account by their governing bodies. Because they are abusing homosexuals, no one stops them or censures them.
Well, enough is enough. If these situations are allowed to continue without restraints it is time for gay, lesbian, transgender and HIV/AIDS Rights Groups to demand of governments and regulating authorities that penalties be applied to those who continue these abuses.
Mannie De Saxe and Kendall Lovett
Mannie and Kendall Present: LESBIAN AND GAY SOLIDARITY ACTIVISMS
RED JOS: HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISM
Mannie's blogs may be accessed by clicking on to the following links:
MannieBlog (from 1 August 2003 to 31 December 2005)
Activist Kicks Backs - Blognow archive re-housed - 2005-2009
RED JOS BLOGSPOT (from January 2009 onwards)
This page updated 25 APRIL 2012 and again on 17 NOVEMBER 2016