News & Comment
Neither ethical nor sustainable
Inconsistencies in the anti-gay cases of two public figures belie a deeper problem.
What do these two things have in common?
In the Weekend Australian Christopher Pearson took issue with those who blame Uganda’s anti-gay laws on Christian preachers and turned instead on those who support LGBT human rights.
Then, in the Sunday Tasmanian, Dr Kathleen Petrovsky launched her new Ethics and Sustainability Party with an attack on same-sex marriage.
The inconsistencies in both is one common element.
Pearson sympathises with homosexual who, in his words, think the hardest aspect of their lives "is not having a stable family life with a lifelong partner, children and grandchildren". Yet, he vehemently opposes the idea of same-sex couples marrying and having children.
Against all the facts, he tries to exonerate fundamentalist American preachers from their complicity in fuelling the hatred behind Uganda's anti-gay laws. Yet, without one scrap of evidence, he suggests there is a direct line from supporting gay human rights to advocating sex with children.
There are many insightful commentators on gay issues, including some sensible, well-respected conservatives. So why is the Australian only interested in those who take aim at human rights advocates rather than anti-gay laws and at homosexuality rather than homophobia?
The inconsistencies in Petrovsky’s views are just as glaring.
Laws against same-sex marriage violate the principle of equality and non-discrimination, and exclude an entire segment of society from a key social institution.
What’s more, 60% of Australians believe same-sex partners should be able to marry. In July last year the Tasmanian Labor Party state conference overwhelmingly endorsed same-sex marriage. During the Christmas / New Year period, same-sex marriages were supported by governments in traditionally-conservative Portugal, Mexico and Argentina.
In short, opposition to same-sex marriage is neither ethical nor sustainable.
ESP spokesperson, Paul Wilson has tried to defend Petrovksy on the basis that the Party has a "no-change social policy". However, Dr Petrovsky's views on the matter make it clear that her opposition to marriage equality is stronger and more pointed than that. Besides, in an election campaign having no policy is itself a policy.
What Pearson and Petrovsky share even more than inconsistency is a special vehemence arising from their links to what they attack.
Pearson is a self-admitted same-sex attracted man, and a one time gay liberationist. His apparently unhappy experience of both, plus a heavy dose of Vaticanism, seem to have a created a kind of psychological whirlpool of condemnation from which the love of other s-s attracted men, however profound it may be, and the way they choose to defend their love, however dignified it may be, cannot escape.
Petrovsky is the same insofar as she is a long-time environmental campaigner (she was a candidate for the United Tasmania Group - the world's first Green Party) who has broken with the Greens over issues like same-sex marriage. I’m reminded of those ALP members who left Gough Whitlam’s Labor Party over its support for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the mid 1970s. One of them, Rodney Cooper, went on to become a notorious advocate against that reform in Tasmania in the 1990s. If she is not careful Petrovsky also risks being defined by one prejudice than by all her worthier aspirations.
There are differences of opinion on LGBT human rights right across the sexual and political spectrum. No-one should expect or even want conformity on such an important issue.
But when the pronouncements of public figures on homosexuality seem to be more about their need to distance themselves from the issue than the merits of the issue itself, the people they hurt most are themselves.
***
In other Ugandan news,
That nation's proposed anti-gay laws have been condemned by the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, US Republican Congressmen and a Ugandan Government Minister, amongst many others.
Little wonder Gary Burns asks, where is Kevin Rudd?
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Comments
Rudd is a huge DUDD! Sorry gay ALP voters! And it is going to get a lot worse!
Yes, Brenton. I find it scary to think that even Howard might have been more amenable to equal marriage than Rudd.
As for Pearson, late-age religious conversion usually produces a strange, even dangerous, fanaticism. And it's not helped by the person being an apparent self-hating, homophobic same sex-attracted person.
Thanks Rodney,ALWAYS for your thoughts! What a shame it is not YOU writing for 'The Australian' than that pathetic version of a homosexualist that is currently employed! Hopefully, the Vatican will appoint him as a Saint and his bones will be scattered by the elements into infinity as QUICKLY as possible!
Pearson has probably been turned now so often,that it has made him a bitter old hypocrit.
Hi Brenton, Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I'm not sure I'm ready for the Australian. I'm not sure CP is ready for sainthood yet either. He'll need a couple of miracles up his sleeve before that happens.
The legalisation of same-sex marriage may be seen by some as a radical thing but as Senator Brown mentioned in the article in The Sunday Tasmanian, there was a time when giving women the right to vote was considered radical. The fact that it may be seen as a radical thing in no way means that marriage equality is not worth fighting for. Equal rights are paramount and often radical change is needed to ensure that this is recognised by the law.
