Archive | February, 2011

Lavartus Prodeo nights.

14 Feb

by Linus Ekenstam via flickr

It wasn’t my intention to visit the Lavartus Prodeo blog. I was on my way to somewhere else when an enticing little link popped up and before I knew it I was right in the middle of the Lavartus Prodeo On Line Opinion thread.

My first post was an alternative perspective on moderating from that dominant in the thread. This brought an immediate response, to the effect that those with enough wit are capable of composing comments that don’t require the intervention of a moderator, and the witless were deleted and dispatched elsewhere. LP is a cyber club, the post continued, and if I didn’t like the rules of the cyber club I should also move elsewhere.

I was a little taken aback at this reaction to what, after all, had only been a personal observation on alternative moderating.

Later on, another commenter told me that I’d announced my alternative opinion in a way that was too challenging and provocative, and I shouldn’t go onto blogs for the first time telling everybody I had a different opinion, because that immediately got them all off side.

In spite of the uninviting nature of the initial reaction, or because of it, my curiosity was aroused. Many people would have run a mile and never returned, but I have a compulsion to continue even when, or especially when, someone tells me right off I don’t belong.

I think it’s a consequence of experiencing severe marginalisation as a child. Freud’s repetition compulsion. I’m still trying to resolve the original trauma of not being allowed to belong, so I compulsively take on anybody who tries to shut me out. Daft, but a compulsion is a compulsion.

As well, I had my own strong opinions about the OLO controversy, and didn’t mind expressing a few of them at LP. I’d go for it, I decided, and girded up.

My decision to subject myself to the experience was also influenced in no small part by the effects of large doses of painkillers I was taking after surgery. These gave me an exaggerated sense of my own capabilities, and made some things seem funny that probably weren’t.

Choosing the best hat for the occasion

Some years ago I read an account of the psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim’s experiences in a concentration camp. He’d survived, he felt, because he had been able to observe and record the experience through the framework of his training. He’d used it as an opportunity to observe human behaviour under extreme conditions. He’d learned a great deal, and given himself a purpose that kept him going. The result was some fascinating insights into the human animal under intolerable stress, and his survival.

I’m not suggesting for a moment that visiting LP was anything like Bettelheim’s ordeal, but since I read how he survived, I’ve often employed his methods when I’ve found myself in testing situations.

I also got a bit of encouragement in this direction from Foucault, who’s mission it was to always find the back story – “My problem is essentially the definition of the implicit systems in which we find ourselves prisoners.” Well, that.

To add to all that, being curious about nationalism, border protection and sovereignty in all its forms, even when manifested on a blog, I sensed there would be a great deal there for me if I took the time to engage in a few encounters.

I also spent years as a clinician, a lot of that time running groups. That specialised interest is probably also a consequence of being chucked out of my original group at an early age.

The past does indeed determine the present, and the future.

This is not the first time I have done this

One more disclosure. I have conducted this experiment (being the only disputing voice and seeing what happens) on a Melinda Tankard Reist comments thread. Though in that case I was quickly joined by others, and the burden of sole dissent was removed from my shoulders. LP is the only blog where I’ve been absolutely alone.

Don’t talk about the PhD

Many of the insults directed at me by MTR’s followers were repeated at LP, especially, strangely, insults about my academic qualifications. I would have thought that both places, the one Christian feminist, the other apparently catering to the educated, would have taken them in their stride, and found them unremarkable, but not at all. I was roundly ridiculed in both places for having mentioned my PhD.

Even though in the MTR case someone had demanded to know what my qualifications were, and I obligingly told them.

And in the LP case Mark Bahnisch corrected me when I addressed him as Mr, saying that he was in fact Dr. So I signed my very next post as Dr, seeing as it seemed to matter.

And brought down on my head an outpouring of mirth from what seemed like a zillion commenters, some of whom revealed their own academic credentials, (no doctorates) and others who made a few up.

Dr Bahnisch was having a joke, it seems, and in signing myself Dr, I apparently responded too seriously. I know him very well, someone posted, and you’ve got him all wrong.

Well, as I’ve never met him, and heard of him only vaguely for reasons I can’t recall, I can’t think of one reason why I’d be expected to know him, much less be au fait with his sense of humour.

God, it’s hard when you don’t know the group norms!

Eric Sykes then showed great insight when he commented that perhaps the blog was not for me.

Somebody then expressed the hope that I would go away.

I took another pain killer. It was time.

Starved of radical dissent

I posted a few times about the OLO situation, and my thoughts that in attempting to close OLO down, an attack was being launched on free speech, among many other things. What did I mean by free speech, Dr Bahnisch demanded. Was I referring to John Stuart Mills? Was I making claims about OLO and the Socratic dialogue? OLO and the principles of the Enlightenment?

By now there were numerous LP commenters attacking me like starving feral cats will set upon a bowl of food left out by a kindly human. I began to think that these people probably didn’t often have the opportunity to talk to someone who completely disagreed with them. They were starved of radical dissent, desperate for someone other than themselves against whom to test their brute intellectual strength, and I was it.

Whoa people! I wrote. You are many and I am but one!

Yes, someone called Fine replied. You might be feeling overwhelmed but if you would only argue properly instead of using rhetoric!

I move blogs

Later that day I meandered over to Club Troppo where I left a comment about the OLO situation. Only to have Mistress Kimbrella (one of the made up qualifications) from LP pursue me like one of the furies.

Well, hello there, Dr Wilson, she wrote. Sorry you didn’t make any friends and influence people at LP.

Really, Mistress whatsit, I admonished as the drugs kicked in, I have given you a day and much of the night. Are you not satisfied? I never said I was interested in commitment. Are you going to demand my attention on the flimsiest of excuses?

The Mistress then reminded me that she had been at Club Troppo and LP for many years. Her point apparently being that I, on the other hand, had only just arrived.

Oh, you mean I’ve landed illegally in a leaky boat without my proper papers, in sovereign territory where I was not invited? I wrote.

What was it again? Oh yes: “We will decide who comes to this blog and the manner in which they come!”

And they’d better assimilate straight away, having first been suitably humble, or they can go right back where they came from.

By now it was becoming clear to me that these people were not fans of Levinas’ theories of radical hospitality.

Group dynamics

Anyone with superficial knowledge of how a group works, knows that one of the basic bonding rituals used to strengthen and reinforce the group is for its members to unite against an outsider. The herd mentality does not have the capacity to embrace the other. It is entirely dedicated to preserving its sovereignty.

The outsider offers a perfect opportunity for a closed group to reinvigorate itself. Members who may feel themselves on the outer for some reason are given the opportunity to return to the fold, as they unite with their fellows against the stranger.

This process is essential from time to time, as the closed group inevitably becomes incestuous when deprived of external contact, turning on one another and splintering into factions. The appearance of a stranger can cause the group to temporarily abandon its dysfunction, re-bond, and celebrate its strengths.

Or as Costas Douzinas puts it “The foreigner is the political precondition of the nation state…”

Getting a good kicking

I have to say LP was much, much worse than MTR. MTR does welcome very opposing commentary. Some of her followers will give you a good kicking, but they don’t tell you to find another blog because you don’t fit in. They thrive on dissent. In this I can only admire them, though many of their views are, in my view, bordering on the insane.

Finally, I accept that I’m not wanted.

I have taken the advice of the LP commenters, and removed myself from their site, probably never to return, unless I have more surgery requiring pain relief.

I probably won’t go back to Club Troppo either, as Ken Parish told me metaphorically to bugger off because my arguments are relentless. I was only trying to rebut statements and opinions he’d attributed to me that were not mine. But I was a foreigner there, too, and perhaps foreigners aren’t supposed to get so uppity right off. Even if they do feel they’re being misrepresented. Maybe foreigners are supposed to just suck it up till they’ve been initiated and accepted? I don’t know.

The last word I give to Derrida:

“For hospitality is not some region of ethics…it is ethicity itself, the whole principle of ethics…”

There’s a lesson in that for all of us.

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Bahnisch and Parish, hello: there is a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in

12 Feb

It’s been a while since I’ve read more pompous and self righteous prose than that recently addressed via email by Mark Bahnisch(Lavartus Prodeo) and Ken Parish (Club Troppo) to the embattled Graham Young at On Line Opinion.

by Mademoiselle Lavender lou via flickr

 

The former can be seen here, the latter at Club Troppo.

I note that one of their major grievances appears to be that this affair has become public. Both blogs have cut Young loose since Christopher Pearson revealed the incipient scandal in the Australian last weekend.

So why do Lavartus Prodeo and Club Troppo object to what is most decidedly a matter of public interest, being put before the public?

Using phrases that are painfully typical of all attempts at middle class repression, they conclude that none of it is in the public interest, even though it raises questions of freedom of speech, religious freedom of speech, moderating across the board, the right to publish opposing opinions, corporate censorship, and much more.

Why on earth would these two blogs seek to keep these matters out of the public domain, and to silence public discussion?

Indeed, so strongly do they or their supporters feel that they have even attacked a comment I left at the Drum, and the Drum itself for publishing my comment.

What? Nobody is allowed to disagree, even on the ABC site, with these self proclaimed authority figures?

Thanks for telling the public it’s none of our concern, chaps. The public really loves people like you telling us what is and isn’t in our interests.

As my headline implies, it is precisely when eruptions such as these occur that an opportunity for public discussion about important matters presents itself.

There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in, chaps. That’s how the light gets in.

How sad that Bahnisch and Parish have attempted to smother public debate, and instead avail themselves of the opportunity to strut the high moral ground.

And how moral is it to dump a colleague at the first sign of trouble? Young has never had complaints such as these made against him before in years of publishing a vast array of opinion.

Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, there is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in…L Cohen via Emerson

BTW

Re the anti discrimination option:

Mikey Bear, who is Greg Storer’s partner, left the following reply on the blog when I asked the anti discrimination question (before I knew the Victorian legislation):

“Why must they go to via an anti-discrimination path? That’s ludicrous. A letter to the advertisers proved far simpler, effective and expedient.”

So I guess that means we had better resign ourselves to global corporations deciding what we’ll read in the blogosphere.

As Andrew Bartlett points out on his blog, two of the most rabid columnists in Australia run blogs with vile commentary in the mainstream media, and no corporations ever pull their advertising because of them.

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Dear Club Troppo

11 Feb

The decision by Club Troppo and Lavartus Prodeo to cut OLO loose.

I think these decisions are regrettable, though predictable.

As Ken Parish acknowledges, OLO publishes on “hot button” topics and from a wide range of perspectives. This is its strength, and what makes it interesting to those who are not dedicated to the pursuit and validation of particular point of view.

It’s unfortunate that the decision to distance from OLO is based on one comments thread. I cannot agree that Muehlenberg’s article shouldn’t have been published – it was soundly rebutted by myself a few days later,as it was also soundly rebutted by many of the comments. Had it been left to stand alone, or if it had been one of many such articles,that would have been different.

In fact OLO has been responsible for publishing what’s been described as “two of the most powerful and persuasive arguments for gay marriage published to date in this country.”

It’s my understanding that Young is running OLO alone at the moment. That means he is responsible for putting up six or seven articles each day, and moderating the comments on every one of them. This is no small task.

Perhaps if Young did not feel so under siege, he would be more amenable to discussing moderating differences. People tend to harden their attitudes when overwhelmed by opposition, and nobody wants to be seen to be abandoning their principles because of pressure. Young’s commitment to his mission is quite extraordinary, under threat he is likely to defend, even against his own best interests.

It might have been wiser, more considered, and dare I say kinder, to allow some time to pass and for the initial turmoil to settle before cutting him loose. It is not as if he has acquired a long-standing reputation for publishing unacceptable comments. Had this been the case, the actions you’ve taken would be more justified.

I think the aspects of the affair that trouble me the most are – that this decision has been taken at the height of the battle (never a good time to make any big decisions), that it is based on one comments thread, and for some, one article. That it is taken against a publication that has been very popular for a long time, without, as far as I know, any previous history of these kind of complaints.

I’m surprised that some kind of negotiation process couldn’t have been organized with Young, giving heated emotions a little time to settle first, and the decision to maintain the status quo or to cut Young loose being allowed to emerge from that process.

Not as dramatic as what has happened, of course. Not the kind of stage upon which others can strut the high moral ground, as they can and have in choosing this “solution.”

But reasonable. Fair. Just. Calm. Considered.

Second comment to Club Troppo

I make this comment separately as there are so many aspects to this furore, it’s necessary to at least try to distinguish between them.

The complainants have stated that they approached all OLO’s advertisers to withdraw from the site as a “last resort,” when Young proved intractable.

Does this mean they have never heard of the anti discrimination board? A legal body specifically organized to deal with exactly these complaints?

The complainants are not entirely truthful when they state that going after Young’s advertisers was the “last resort.” It was in fact their first.

Had they chosen the anti discrimination path, and had the verdict been in their favour, OLO would have been fined, and a message sent to all those who host comments pages that they are vulnerable to prosecution and punishment. This might have gone some way to cleaning things up across the board. That would have been very useful activism.

As it is, only ONE publication is affected, and it will all be forgotten next week except for those primarily involved. Sites that don’t carry advertising, or don’t carry the kind of advertisers who care, are entirely unaffected and free to carry on as they please.

All in all, an opportunity missed, I’d say.

Reclaiming marriage from the great big Christian hijack

10 Feb

This essay was first published by Graham Young in On Line Opinion, December 2010

In view of the scare tactics employed by the Australian Christian Lobby in their new petition to prevent the legalisation of gay marriage, it seems timely to publish it again.

by Danny Hammontree via flickr

 

 

Judging from the flurry of articles that have appeared recently written by Christians against same sex marriage (as well as same sex adoption, in which many similar religious justifications are invoked) one can be forgiven for thinking that many Christians believe their god invented the institution.

This could not be further from the truth. Marriage has existed a whole lot longer than Christianity. The Chinese philosopher Confucius, born in 551 BC, offered this delightful definition: “Marriage is the union of two different surnames, in friendship and in love.”

Indeed, there is considerable historical evidence that in Greece, Rome, China and Europe same-sex marriages were celebrated along with the heterosexual unions deemed necessary either for economic purposes, or for men to ensure (they hoped) the parentage of children.

For a period in our history marriage had little to do with romance and love, and much to do with economic and physical survival. The spiritual and emotional dimensions of marriage that many Westerners feel are at its core are relatively recent developments.

Christians imposed their beliefs on an institution that was already long in place, and called this fallacy god’s will. Instead of acknowledging that Christian marriage is but one example of that institution, they appear to deny validity to any other and thus attempt to reify their singular take on the concept.

So successful has this reification been that there are people who want to marry in churches, even though they never set foot in them before or after the ceremony. Many people feel an understandable desire for their marriage to be “blessed,” and there’s no doubt the Christian ritual can be quite beautiful.

I’ve no wish to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

But people marry for all kinds of reasons. For example, it’s estimated that some 200,000 marriages per year take place in the United States expressly for the purpose of obtaining a Green Card for the spouse who is not a US citizen. There are marriages made in Australia for the same pragmatic reason. These unions apparently disrespect the Christian god’s purpose for marriage, and ought to cause offence to believers. However, they don’t appear to be anywhere near as offensive to Christians as are same sex marriages, chosen on the basis of love, and the desire for commitment and family.

On the other hand, marriage between blacks and white in the US southern states (miscegenation) was illegal until 1967. Not only did the Christian god demand that marriage only take place between a man and a woman at that time, apparently he needed them to be the same skin colour as well.

It took that country’s Christians some 276 years to overthrow that particular racist injustice.

Christian beliefs about marriage change, as the above example demonstrates. Presumably, this is as a consequence of god changing his mind, and somehow relaying that change to the faithful who then update the law.

But what a truly intolerable state of affairs, that the lives and futures of many same sex couples are at the mercy of the arbitrary decisions of a transcendental exteriority that many citizens don’t believe exists at all, or not in the form touted by Christians.

This state of affairs is undemocratic. It breaches the human right to have freedom from religion as well as to have freedom of religion.

As some 60% of Australians are in favour of same sex marriage, it is puzzling that the two major parties continue to believe they can afford to ignore this majority. One can only conclude their mutual fear of offending the religious vote is stronger than their fear of offending the 60%, who they probably assume will not rate this issue highly on their wish lists of what they want governments to change.

One person’s god is another person’s superstition. Christians are not renowned for their democratic principles when it comes to the many varieties of spiritual practice at work in the world. Who can forget the scary tale of Mother Theresa baptising dying Hindus who were too ill to protest?  An act of spiritual terrorism by stealth if ever there was one.

The problem with many believers (not just Christians) is that their belief prevents them from respecting another person’s point of view. Non- believers are dismissed as simply wrong headed. They’re on their way to hell in a handcart, and they will be sorry when they get there that they didn’t listen when they had the chance.

There’s no reasoning with this mindset. Once you come up against the tunnel vision of implacable belief (often known as “faith”) you’ve come to the end of the discussion, and all that’s left to do is to walk away.

Then there’s the question of Christian credibility. The churches currently have a very bad reputation to overcome. The appalling incidence of sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children in their care, and the equally appalling attempts to cover up and deny these abuses, have gone a long way to undermining the churches’ credibility in any thinking person’s mind.

It was Jesus who said “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he be cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.”

Yet while ordinary Christians are more than willing to speak out against same sex marriage and same sex adoption, among many other issues of which they disapprove, they are bone-chillingly silent when it comes to protesting the evils perpetrated in their own back yards. Has there ever been a better illustration of Burke’s maxim “All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men [sic] to remain silent?”

Perhaps what is required from Christians these days is a little humility. An acknowledgement that they haven’t got everything right, indeed there are things they have got horrifically wrong, and that there is a collective as well as an individual responsibility for this that must be addressed before they can legitimately turn their rigorous attention to the maintenance of a broader human morality.

If I were imagining a god, she/he would care a whole lot more about believers destroying the bodies, hearts and souls of children than about preventing same sex marriage, and same sex adoption. If my god was going to smite anybody, I hope she/he would be smiting the perpetrators of those crimes against children, and those who enabled and protected those perpetrators and denied their crimes. I hope she/he would take positive action to enlighten those who would deprive children of love and legal security, solely because these people are unable to personally deal with the concept of love between same sex partners.

My god would teach that loving one another is the only thing that matters, and from that all else will grow.

She/he would also be smart enough to admit that loving one another is the hardest thing we’ll ever have to do on this planet.

“Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another,” said Christ.

“We must love one another, or die,” said the poet, W.H. Auden.

“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal,” warned St Paul.

It’s time to reclaim marriage from the Christians. They can’t claim it as their own. It belongs to everybody. Marriage in Australia in 2010 is about loving one another, whatever gender the other happens to be. It is about hope, and deeply good intentions. It’s about wanting to be the best a human being can be. It’s about wanting to create a living, breathing mystery, day by day, with the person you love and who loves you.

It doesn’t always work. Hearts get terribly broken. We dust ourselves off, and sometimes have another crack at it, because we are very brave, and we are full of hope, and we have a vision of enduring love that keeps us going, no matter what form our marriages take, or even if they end.

We do this whether we are Christians or not. We do it because we are human beings who at our best are capable of living out these wonders regardless of gender, and oftentimes in spite of the difficulties gender can create for us.

I’m perfectly happy to let Christians conduct their marriage ceremonies according to their beliefs. And every other religious group as well. They don’t have to celebrate same sex marriage in their own places of worship if they don’t want to. This is one of the freedoms our democracy guarantees. I don’t wish to take that freedom away from Christians or any other religious group.

But what no democratic government should tolerate is Christians, or any other religious group, defining marriage and dictating its practices in this country. Government decisions must not be based on religious belief in our pluralist society. They must be based on what is fair, what is just, and what is non-discriminatory. Democracy is inclusive. Christianity, sadly, increasingly demonstrates that it is not.

Same sex marriage and same sex adoption are not dangers from which governments need to protect us. But the tyranny of religions destroying anybody’s democratic rights to these things, most certainly is.

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Update: now it’s getting weirder

9 Feb

Saturday February 12

Much is being made of the complainants’ declaration that they turned to all OLO’s advertisers as a “last resort.”

Does this mean they’ve never heard of the anti discrimination board?  A legal body specifically established to address exactly these problems?

I’m sorry to say it, but in claiming “last resort” status, they are, quite frankly, telling porkies.

Thursday February 10

Larvatus Prodeo writer  Kim, alias Mistress Kimbrella, (rhymes with umbrella) has claimed at Club Troppo that I am leading some kind of neo McCarthyist inquisition of all Gregory Storer’s associates, including his cat, in my unrelenting efforts to uncover the names of “zillions” of Pink Mafia (Bill Muehlenberg’s term) who assisted Gregory in his economic boycott of On Line Opinion.

Just what, Mistress Kimbrella screeches, does Dr Wilson intend to do with this list of names when she’s got it?

Well, put everybody on the rack and burn their toes off, clearly. Then wear the cat’s skin on my head with a bloodied pink ribbon holding it’s jaws together.

What’s wrong with the Mistress that she can’t figure that out?

Larvatus Prodeo carries the most savagely gleeful attacks on Graham Young and OLO’s misfortunes that I’ve seen thus far. Does this explain the Mistress’s  allegations against one of their supporters?

My word, the blogosphere can be an interesting place.

∫

The question has to be asked: why didn’t those who were distressed by the comments in OLO take action under the anti discrimination legislation?

Why did they choose instead to lobby all OLO advertisers to withdraw their business, an action which would financially cripple the site, and Young?

∫

Now I’m under attack for gay bashing, and only supporting some gays and not others.

Read the essay. Do you really think anyone the slightest bit ambivalent about gays and lesbians could have written that?

My argument with Gregory Storer has nothing to do with his sexuality.  It’s to do with the actions he took against OLO.

Now, after the strange communications from his partner, I confess I’m stumped. I don’t know what’s going on here.

I was happy to do what Ken Parish did and apologise for suspecting a group led by Storer that didn’t exist.

Then Michael’s communications seem to suggest something’s not quite right. But I don’t know what.

And the savage glee expressed on some blogs at Graham Young’s misfortune! Wow.

The perfection of heterosexual marriage?

8 Feb
Rainbow flag flapping in the wind with blue sk...

Image via Wikipedia

This article  written by me was first published at On Line Opinion December 2010.

Editor Graham Young published it in response to the earlier anti gay marriage piece by Bill Muehlenberg.

I have just read the article by Bill Muelhlenberg, Dismantling a homosexual marriage myth, published in Online Opinion Thursday November 25 2010, for the second time.

The sentiments expressed are the polar opposite to my own views on the subject of same sex marriage, views I’ve expressed in articles on this site. However, there is one point on which we agree.

The struggle for the right to same sex marriage does have several dimensions, as the article suggests, not all of them immediately apparent. The struggle is indeed about far more than a simplistic change to the wording of the Marriage Act. (Though it must be noted here that the wording of Marriage Act was in fact changed by the Howard government in 2004 to define marriage as only permissible between a man and woman. So perhaps the wording of the original Act was not quite so simple, if Howard felt compelled to change it).

I do not agree, however, that these deeper dimensions of the debate are gay conspiracies designed to subversively change the nature of marriage altogether. Indeed, I find the arguments for this theory rather bizarre.

For example. There is nothing currently in the Marriage Act that speaks to a legal prohibition against infidelity. Monogamy is nothing more than individual hope and intention. That is, there is no legal requirement for monogamy in the Marriage Act that faces revision or extinction should gays and lesbians be allowed to marry.

I am completely at a loss as to understand how permitting marriage between gays and lesbians will encourage infidelity and promiscuity in heterosexual married couples.

The author claims that, “The wonderful interaction of a man and a woman in the complementarity of heterosexual marriage is what makes it so special and beneficial.” De facto relationships aren’t blessed with this special beneficence, according to his paradigm. The author doesn’t mention whether this “complementarity” is only available in Christian marriage, and denied to those who marry in the Registry office or in mosques and synagogues.

I’d like to suggest that what makes a marriage “special and beneficial” is the commitment of the couple, to one another and to the love they live and create, regardless of their gender, religion or lack of it. I’d like to remind the author that very similar arguments were made, not so very long ago, against marriage between blacks and whites.

There are heterosexual marriages that work really well. There are heterosexual marriages that are sites of nuclear devastation and certainly do not work at all. And there are heterosexual marriages that occupy a place between these two extremes, and muddle lovingly along without much drama, one way or the other. But how, I ask in all good faith, will permitting gays and lesbians to marry affect the nature, progress and outcome of any of those marriages?

“The truth is,” the author instructs us, because he clearly believes he is someone who knows a) what the truth is, and b) what most of us think the truth is,  “homosexuals do not at all have in mind what most of us understand marriage to be.” I have to take Meulhlenberg up on this, because I was taught from an early age to always question terms such as “most of us.” To someone from my background (and there are many of us), the use of the term “most of us” to support an argument implies an unsubstantiated but hegemonic perspective that may well be highly inaccurate, if not delusional, and we must treat it with caution.

It is always inadvisable to assume that everybody else thinks like you, or that a “most of us” even exists.

Just what demographic is this “most of us” supposedly comprised of, anyway?

Whether or not all homosexuals have a different concept of marriage from “most of us” has not been determined. But whether they do or not is actually quite irrelevant in terms of the effects of their concepts on heterosexual marriage.

Heterosexuals can already do exactly whatever they choose within their marriages. There is nothing to stop them pursuing any and all kinds of perversions, unless one party in the marriage complains to the police. Gay and lesbian marriage is not going to change the status quo for heterosexuals, even if their ideas are as different as the author claims.

Back to the point on which we do have agreement. The struggle for same sex marriage is indeed about much more than allowing gays and lesbians the same marriage rights as heterosexuals. It is a struggle for equality. It is a struggle for the legal recognition of the all-embracing power of that force we call “love.” All embracing, that is, not exclusive. I do not believe that love excludes. I believe inclusion is one of its prime characteristics. I won’t presume to add that I believe “most of us” agree with my perspective, but I know some people do.

The struggle for same sex marriage is about our nation having the generosity of heart to acknowledge, in its laws, that love comes in many and varied ways, and there is not one amongst us who has the right to judge which loving way is right, and which loving way is wrong.

There are many arguments to be made against marriage, heterosexual and gay. There are many arguments to be made for it. There is no reasonable argument to be made for same sex couples being excluded from this institution, with all its wonders and all its failings. If some gays and lesbians wish to marry, for better or for worse, then it is their business and there is no good reason to exclude them from the joys and the catastrophes of the married state.

If there is fear abroad for the future of marriage, then address that fear at its real causes. For example.  Family violence in heterosexual marriage. The abuse and sexual abuse of children within heterosexual partnerships. Infidelity, overt and covert.  Inequality in heterosexual marriages.

To quote the magnificent Leonard Cohen on this last point, there’s “the homicidal bitching that goes down in every kitchen to determine who will serve and who will eat.” As far as I am aware, much of this ‘homicidal bitching” goes down between heterosexual couples, and frequently concerns how much more housework women do than their male partners.

As well, there are heterosexuals who could well write an article titled “How to be married and still be a slut.” (I have strong reservations about the use of the term ‘slut’ in this pejorative manner, but that discussion is for another time and place).

The impression Meulhenberg has worked hard to create in his article is that heterosexual marriage is some kind of perfect state that no one other than heterosexuals may aspire to, and whose perfection will somehow be threatened by including gays and lesbians in the Marriage Act. This is simply not true. Anything bad that can happen in marriage is already happening, and nobody seems to be able to do very much about preventing it, if the child abuse and domestic violence statistics are anything to go by.

The questions that immediately arise in this reader’s mind are, how fragile is this institution, that its proponents must circle their wagons against any and every perceived threat?  How fragile is this institution that some people must fight with all their might to keep it exclusive?

Will focusing on the perceived evils of gay marriage distract heterosexuals from their collective responsibility for the parlous state of the institution of which they are currently in sole charge? Because whatever is going wrong in marriages, and there’s plenty going wrong, responsibility for it certainly can’t be laid at the doors of gays and lesbians.

In our culture, marriage is still an extremely powerful public and legal acknowledgment of love and commitment. This acknowledgement ought to be available to anyone who wants it.

As I have written here before, “Same sex marriage and same sex adoption are not dangers from which governments need to protect us. But the tyranny of religions destroying anybody’s democratic rights to these things, most certainly is.”

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Storer changes the story, and Michael plays a game

8 Feb

Gregory Storer

This is the public complaint Storer lodged against OLO, at the Ambit Gambit blog:

I’m one of the ‘gay activists’ who ‘attacked’ online opinion, however, I took exception to some of the comments that where posted after Bill Muehlenberg’s piece, not the actual essay.
I defend Bill’s right to his opinions, he should have he’s stuff published, but it’s the disrespectful and outright hatred of the comments that follow that are objectionable. As a person who is gay, I find those comments disturbing and they shouldn’t have a place in our society.
And I did the right thing, I raised the comments with Graham Young, he made it clear he thought the comments where ok, so the next step is to approach the sponsors and advertisers to make them aware of the sort of site they support and to express my disgust.
Online Opinion does a great job in allowing people to express their opinions by publishing their articles. The comment sections leave a lot to be desired.
Comment by Gregory — December 20, 2010 @ 3:30 am

I note Storer says he is  “one” of the gay activists that ‘attacked’ OLO. Therefore I and several other people took him at his word that he was “one of,” but one of how many we did not know.

I have since asked this question of his partner Michael Barnett, who approached me on this blog. This is the response:

Michael Barnett: I have the answers to your questions and you’d be surprised and disappointed with them.

Me: Well, tell us then.

Michael: I don’t need to tell you what I know. You can trust me.

WTF????

Now Storer claims to have acted alone.

Actually, the next step isn’t an economic boycott. The next step is the Anti Discrimination legislation. That’s what it’s there for.

Gregory Storer, Secular Party of Australia‘s candidate for Melbourne Ports in the 2010 federal election, has emerged as the man behind a gay lobby’s successful efforts to persuade the ANZ Bank and IBM to withdraw advertising from On Line Opinion.

Gregory’s mission statement reads in part as follows:

I firmly believe that there should be a clear separation of church and state.  I have a strong code of ethics and think that human rights should be paramount to the way we live our lives.

I would like to see an Australia that accepts its citizens for who they are, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity or ethnic background.  We are all people, we are all entitled to equal rights and as citizens of Australia we all deserve to be treated with respect, to enable us to fully participate in our society.

Noble sentiments, Gregory. How do they sit with exerting your economic power to bring about the closure of an on line community because you feel it has offended you?

In an email to me earlier today, Gregory stated that he had not bullied, or engaged in standover tactics in order to close down OLO, and that he does not even want to close OLO down.

So what, then, I inquired, did he imagine his lobbying of  all the site’s sponsors to withdraw all their advertising dollars would achieve, if not financial knee capping of  the popular site?

Still waiting for the candidate to answer that question.

As to how large the gay lobby led by Gregory is, I haven’t been able to ascertain that so far. There must be some members of considerable economic power, if they are in a position to persuade corporations such as ANZ and IBM to change their advertising placements.

A quick peek at Bill Muehlenberg’s website, and the website belonging to the Australian Christian Lobby, reveals there’s outrage in both camps against the ANZ Bank for its pro gay marriage stance, and its attempts to apparently influence Bill’s freedom of speech.

Looks like the candidate for Melbourne Ports has caused a very diverse group of citizens to ponder if their rights have been disregarded in his pursuit of On Line Opinion.

“The Pink Mafia” is Muehlenberg’s term, one which until yesterday seemed pretty excessive. But today, having learned the lengths to which Storer and his gang are prepared to go to exert their will on the digital reading public, maybe Bill isn’t too far wrong.

Now that’s scary.

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On Line Opinion: Update

7 Feb

The freedom of speech issue here is not about the freedom to vilify gay people, as many are assuming.

It is about one group exercising its economic power to close down a site that has been available for all manner of groups to have a voice, thus denying those groups their freedom of speech about their issues by closing down their outlet.

I am amazed at the feedback I’m receiving about the consequences of vilification. As if as a woman I am unaware of these.

Women are vilified every day by an untold number of global media. There is an epidemic of global violence against, and murder of women.

How astonishing then, that those who seek to close down OLO in the interests of preventing vilification and its consequences, are not urgently seeking to close down the myriad of other media that contribute to the violence, rape and slaughter perpetrated on women around the world every hour of every day.

Linda Burney’s punitive stand on surrogacy.

6 Feb
Dibujo del perfil de Nicole Kidman

Image via Wikipedia

If Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban had hired an overseas surrogate to carry baby Faith Margaret while living in any of their NSW homes, and then returned with their baby,they would be subject to fines and jail sentences, under the terms of  the amendment to surrogacy legislation introduced by NSW Minister for Community Services, Linda Burney.

On March 1 2011 NSW legislation on surrogacy will pass into law, making commercial surrogacy illegal in the State.

Linda Burney has added an extra territorial amendment to the original surrogacy bill, extending the criminalisation of commercial surrogacy to those who employ overseas surrogates.

The penalties for using an overseas surrogate will be a fine of some $110,000, and/or two years jail.

As well, the child parents bring home will have no legal rights and protection, as do all other children in NSW, regardless of the method of their conception.

Parents may apply for parentage orders for their children, however in doing so will run the risk of criminal prosecution, with fines and possible jail terms.

This would seem a powerful disincentive to applying for appropriate orders, leaving the children in a right-less and unprotected limbo.

As well, Burney’s amendment assumes that all those seeking overseas surrogacy arrangements will look for underprivileged women who need the money.

There are many commercial surrogates overseas who are middle class women, and who make an informed choice to carry a child for another woman.

The Minister’s justifications

Minister Burney’s justification for the extra territorial clause is that she wishes to, in her language, punish those who “take advantage of women who hire out their bodies because they are poor.” Criminalizing those who have been unable to find altruistic surrogates in NSW and turn instead to women overseas is the realisation of Burney’s desire to punish.

It is unrealistic in the extreme to expect this criminalizing of a minority group of NSW citizens will make any dent at all in the exploitation of women in countries where commercial surrogacy is legal. One might as well criminalize everyone who buys a t-shirt made in a Bangkok sweatshop by six year old children who are paid 20 cents a day for their labours.

Or what about the Australian citizens who travel overseas for say, a kidney transplant to a country where the traffic in human organs is unregulated and people sell the parts they can live without for an income? Are we going to criminalize those citizens and prosecute them when they come home with their new illegal part on board?

A divisive issue

Commercial surrogacy is a morally divisive issue. Those against it argue that it results in the depersonalisation of pregnancy and childbirth, and that it treats both women and children as commodities. Wealthy couples can “rent a womb” from financially vulnerable women, and this, in the eyes of some, is exploitation of the worst kind.

Commercial surrogacy is felt by some to be degrading to both women and children. It is perceived as morally offensive, and as treating other human beings merely as a means to an end.

There are potential emotional difficulties on all sides, including that of the child.

The argument for (briefly)

Those who argue for commercial surrogacy point out that it is a matter of personal autonomy for all the adults involved. If a woman wishes to act as a surrogate that is her business, they argue, and she is entitled to remuneration for her time and work.

If commercial surrogacy is permitted and regulated in NSW, then it will lessen the need for couples to go overseas and into situations of possible exploitation, they claim.

To proscribe commercial surrogacy on the grounds that it’s harmful to those undertaking it is interference by the State in personal matters that are not the State’s business, and that belong in the realm of the private conscience, some argue. It is not acceptable, this argument continues, for the State to impose and enforce one moral aspect against private actions that do not harm others.

What is Burney’s amendment good for?

It seems highly unlikely that Burney’s amendment will prevent couples seeking commercial surrogacy overseas. What it will most certainly achieve is the legal alienation of the resulting children in this State. It will cause parents to conceal their activities, perhaps even from their own families, for fear of prosecution.

It will cast an unacceptable and permanent cloud over such families and their children. It will drive those having no option but commercial surrogacy, underground.

And for what?

To satisfy Burney’s need to take a moral stand against the laws of other countries.

Moral stands are often good and necessary things, but only when they’re realistically weighed up against their usefulness, and their consequences. In this case the usefulness of such a moral stand would seem to be minimal. The consequences, on the other hand, are horrible and permanent for the families concerned.

The reality is that couples needing the services of a surrogate are going to find one, somehow, somewhere.  Those of us, who like Ms Burney have not needed to take this drastic action in order to create our families, need to be especially careful when prescribing for and judging those less fortunate in that respect.

It is an especially weighty responsibility for Burney, as she is in a privileged position. She has the power to create a situation in which those less fortunate than herself are criminalized, and their children cast into a legal limbo.

Burney’s extra territorial amendment could well be seen by some as an abuse of her power. Perhaps it isn’t a politician’s role to punish those he or she disagrees with, on moral grounds that are far from unanimous in the community.

Perhaps it is especially distasteful when a politician acts on a personal desire to punish constituents who are already struggling with the fraught issue of creating their family.

Surrogacy in NSW Law Reform Commission Discussion paper

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ANZ, IBM withdraw advertising from e-journal that published opinion piece against gay marriage

5 Feb

I am a strong supporter of the political and social online journal, On Line Opinion, founded and run by Graham Young.

OLO publishes all manner of opinion, no matter how contradictory, as long as it’s well argued and not abusive.  In this, OLO is a rather unique site, and at times its fora are extremely lively.

OLO is a rare gem. It offers voice to many disparate views. Under no circumstances should we have to do without it.

So when I read in today’s Australian that two major sponsers, IBM and the ANZ bank, have withdrawn their advertising from OLO in protest at the publication of an article by Bill Muehlenberg in which he argues against gay marriage, I thought I’d fallen down a rabbit hole.

I remember Bill’s article well. In fact I wrote a contrary opinion that Graham subsequently published.

I totally disagree with almost everything Muehlenberg says in his piece, but by all the gods, I defend his right to say it.

Apparently OLO has come under attack from some gay activists for publishing Bill’s piece. While the arguments in it are not to my liking, I cannot find them hateful, or inciting hatred. They are quite easily addressed and refuted, as others besides myself have done. I cannot see any reason at all to not publish, that is to censor, Muehlenberg’s opinion piece.

Apparently the ANZ Bank and IBM don’t agree.

As Christopher Pearson reports in his article today, the ANZ states that they do not advertise on blogs that “do not align to our organizational values.” That is, Muehlenberg’s anti gay marriage article offends the ANZ’s pro gay marriage values so profoundly that they’ve pulled their advertising.

Oh, that they would only show such integrity about their business relationships with the manufacturers of land mines!

I’m a staunch supporter of gay marriage. But I’m alarmed that some gay activists apparently seek to silence authors and publishers who do not agree with them, and wish to present an opposing view.

This can never be good for society. To fight for a freedom, and then attempt to deny it to those who don’t agree with you is tyranny. There were no grounds for silencing Muehlenberg in that article, unless you just didn’t like it that he said it, and that doesn’t count.

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