{"id":31731,"date":"2016-02-26T18:51:06","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T07:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nofibs.com.au\/?p=31731"},"modified":"2019-04-13T23:54:17","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T13:54:17","slug":"lgbti-versus-christians-an-unnecessary-war-burgewords-comments-on-safeschools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/lgbti-versus-christians-an-unnecessary-war-burgewords-comments-on-safeschools\/","title":{"rendered":"LGBTI versus Christians, an unnecessary war: @burgewords comments on #SafeSchools"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pride

Pride March Adelaide, November 2013.<\/p><\/div>\n

This is not a suffering competition for martyrs, it’s a legislative process taking place in a secular nation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

THE Turnbull government has no firm plans for a public vote on marriage equality. We only know it\u2019ll be \u2018after the election\u2019, an Abbott three-word slogan for \u2018on the never-never\u2019; and that it will be a non-binding, $160-million-dollar opinion poll that won\u2019t be compulsory for any Australian voter or politician to participate in.<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t really matter. While Malcolm Turnbull wasn\u2019t watching, a war cabinet has been plotting against LGBTI dignity\u00a0from\u00a0the Coalition backbench, spilling from the party room into the media this week when the Safe Schools program<\/a> came under attack.<\/p>\n

Now is not the time to be under any illusions: Australians in every community are coming under pressure to take a position on whether Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex people (LGBTI) have the right to equal marriage and if\u00a0the parliament should attempt to ensure LGBTI children are no longer alienated and bullied at school.<\/p>\n

From many right-wing MPs and senators, and at least one on the left, this program generated hate speech<\/a> that was about as unparliamentary and dishonourable as it gets, from representatives who bear the word \u2018honourable\u2019 in their formal titles.<\/p>\n

The Safe Schools program was always going to come under unjustifiable attack. Every LGBTI project I have ever been involved with has become a target if it even hinted at the possibility of going anywhere near a school.<\/p>\n

God forbid adults who have lived through the profound lack of in-school protection for LGBTIs seek to ensure young people receive a shred of information, before they start learning myths about diversity from those who would seek to indoctrinate their children against us and the LGBTI students and teachers among them.<\/p>\n

Yet the multi-party state- and federally-funded program has revealed deep phobias, from the parliament to my neighbourhood and on social media. The reaction has been so strong it\u2019s become hard to pick the real victims.<\/p>\n

\"12496322_10153958480562813_111425310789912770_o\"Quite rightly, LGBTI groups cited the National School Chaplaincy Program<\/a> as meeting every one of the accusations levelled at Safe Schools.<\/p>\n

Memes showing the huge disparity between Safe Schools and School Chaplain funding left many people of faith feeling under fire.<\/p>\n

I get why – it smarts when you\u2019re made to feel you have to justify your existence.<\/p>\n

But this is not a suffering competition for martyrs, it’s a legislative process taking place in a secular nation.\u00a0While your repression might feel like my oppression, they are certainly far from the same phenomenon, and only one of us\u00a0is being legislated against.<\/p>\n

Whichever citizens can be bothered voting in the never-never plebiscite do not need the distraction of false victims when it comes to exactly who is being oppressed by inequality.<\/p>\n

Coming so soon after the Australian Christian Lobby\u2019s call to hit the pause button on anti-discrimination laws<\/a> so they can hate their way through the marriage equality debate, we\u2019ve woken up in the middle of a war: Christians versus LGBTI.<\/p>\n

Bill Shorten called-out Cory Bernardi on his homophobia<\/a> this week, while Malcolm Turnbull called for measured language<\/a>, preferring to avoid labelling the hate that dare not speak its name.<\/p>\n

I wish it wasn’t happening, I wish our parliament would simply vote on the matter, because in absolving itself of guiding a parliamentary free vote, the Coalition is leading this country to tear itself asunder.<\/p>\n

Bringing homophobia and transphobia into the light will be an ugly process for an ugly energy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The marriage equality plebiscite is already causing\u00a0damage. The debate has become a\u00a0base numbers game between LGBTI and Christians, so vociferous so early that many voters will simply stay away.<\/p>\n

Once\u00a0we see yes\/no campaigns in communities, such as\u00a0the small island where I live with my husband among a population of around 600, I predict the Coalition\u2019s plan will cause great division.<\/p>\n

Homophobia, in my experience, always polarises between two extremes. There are the unacceptable and illegal gay bashings and overt violence, while at the other end of the spectrum are the silent, insidious processes of exclusion that occur right under the nose and invariably go unchallenged.<\/p>\n

Gradually, our\u00a0friends have started\u00a0to witness attempts to\u00a0make us\u00a0invisible in certain conversations, because it\u2019s noticeable when a homophobe addresses someone we’re\u00a0standing with, but not us.<\/p>\n

When we were new to this place, few\u00a0were aware of this subtle discrimination, but about a year ago, making new friends brought with it the realisation that some\u00a0of the so-called \u2018great people\u2019 living here, who are also incredibly homophobic, would gradually make themselves\u00a0apparent to anyone paying attention.<\/p>\n