The profound nastiness of the Turnbull government
It was inevitable that any opposition by the ALP or Greens to Abbott’s reeking legacy, the proposed plebiscite on marriage equality, would provide the Turnbull government with the ammunition to claim (with confected indignation) that both parties are creating an obstacle that thwarts an opportunity for same-sex marriage.
There are bound to be those who accept this warped inversion, however they are likely to be the same groups and individuals that reject marriage equality anyway.
What this situation reveals yet again is the profound nastiness of the LNP. This nastiness (there really isn’t a better word for it, their attitude towards their fellow humans is as base as that) has been evidenced in Treasurer Scott Morrison’s decision to deprive the unemployed and pensioners in order to fix his budget, and the vengeful exercise of raw power as illustrated by Peter Dutton’s ongoing implacability over asylum seekers and refugees. It’s reflected in the image that heads this post: even the dead are perceived as new sources of revenue for the LNP.
I don’t need to go on, the evidence of their nastiness is everywhere we look, and it multiplies as we sleep.
Nastiness is the Turnbull government’s default position. From the apparent banality of nastiness all manner of evils flourish, and if you ever doubted that it is being enacted daily, for you to witness, in our parliament.
Though the Northern Territory can’t be ever be taken as typical, the carnage wrought on the CLP this weekend gives me small hope. Citizens can become sickened by nastiness, and they can wreak havoc on the party of nasty when they’ve had enough.
There is not one rational reason to deny marriage equality. We are a secular state: religious arguments ought not to influence our decisions. The unholy alliance of religion and nastiness currently hold sway.
It’s my hope that the ALP hold out against a plebiscite. No Liberal MP has any obligation to honour a yes result. Those who touchingly believe a plebiscite = marriage equality need to disabuse themselves of that belief, because it does not. We could well go through the torturous process and still have necessary amendments to the Marriage Act blocked by MPs who are not bound to accept a ‘yes’ vote.
At the heart of the demand for a plebiscite is nastiness, and a poisonous hatred for anyone who doesn’t fit a narrow definition of ‘normal’. The influence of pure nastiness has been overlooked in our arguments yet it is a powerful driver of irrational behaviour and you’d have to go a long way to find behaviour more irrational than that of Turnbull’s government in just about any area you can name.
There are rumours again that Abbott is preparing himself to challenge Turnbull’s leadership. Not only are they nasty to citizens, they are exceptionally nasty to one another. I would take great pleasure in watching the LNP continue to cannibalise itself. I doubt it would affect our governance to any great degree: they aren’t doing much of that anyway.
It’s my hope that the fate of the NT CLP is the Turnbull government’s future. Barely enough seats left to form a party? I’d go for that.
This article was originally published on No Place For Sheep.
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Return to home pageGood article Jennifer. Turnbull sounds to me like he’s holding gay people to ransom, and blaming Labor and Greens and anyone else with enough sense to realise the vote on this is the job of parliament. {It’s all Labor’s fault you dont have SSM equality) On 2 grounds alone it should not happen – huge expense and nasty bigots let out of the cupboard. For what? I loved the way he brushed aside Barrie Cassidy’s question about the NT election – oh that was local issues. That and what seems to have been an awful lot of nastiness up there in the Territory, and of course, disunity! All being played out in spades on the Federal front.
What Jaquix said. 100%.
Hear, hear Jennifer Wilson,
I also enjoy the continuing spectacle of the LNP Degenerates cannibalising themselves.
I would also add that not only do I hope their self-harm causes them to lose by a landslide in a premature election, but I hope the really, really nasty ones like:
Dud Dutton,
Snotty Morrisscum,
Grim Reaper Andrews,
Sieg Heils Porter,
Foghorn Cash
… to name just a few, hamstring their future careers wherever they go.
Does it ever occur to any of you that it is just plain wrong. It’s not normal? That some people just cannot in good conscience say yes to something that they believe is wrong? What will you do if after taken to the people and the result is still no? Will you all except the referee’s decision? I doubt it!
Spot on …. though I am also not in favour of a non-binding plebiscite on issues such as this, perhaps it should be turned around on the LNP by the other parties announcing: “IF you are determined to take this to a vote (despite the cost in both tax payer money AND the threat posed by bringing haters out of the cupboards) make it a binding referendum. That way a conclusion will be reached and the far right in the LNP cannot weasel out of voting FOR marriage equality in Parliament.
I cannot trust the Liberals to put forward a question on same sex marriage equality that is not in some way twisted and limited. We saw the process in the Republic Referendum where Howard was able to succeed in putting a question that a lot of Republic supporters found they had to vote against. It would have been Howard’s Republic, not an Australian Republic.
By the way, Referenda can only be on questions that change the Constitution. SSME is a matter that should be decided by a Parliamentary vote. (Which is why a plebiscite is non-binding and therefore a useless waste of money).
Thank you for
Voicing this !
Fedup, the only moral issue here is one of equal rights. Please don’t confuse it with Christian religious morality, which is often in conflict with basic human rights (ie. equality). We are a secular state, or at least we are supposed to be. The separation of the Church and the State is a fundamental tenant of our parliamentary democracy. The religious racists tend to ignore or forget this. Issues of basic human rights should not be put to a popularity contest.
Sadly, this entire issue is being used as a smokescreen to divert attention from the real lack of governing going on with our elected representatives
What is “normal” Fedup? What is “wrong”? You are trying to put human based constructs (like good and evil) onto biological realities. All of us, in some part of our lives, are biological abnormalities, yet we generally accept these with good grace and afford them the same rights as others. (Each of us carry, as outbreeding organisms, at least 20 recessive lethal genes, and god knows how other deleterious ones, which could cause other genetic abnormality if we happen to procreate with the wrong person – a degree of “ABNORMALITY” is “NORMAL”).
Why not deny blind people, or deaf people the right to marry? Or those with missing limbs? How about those who are asexual? Or those who just don’t want to have sex? And what has sex to do with marriage anyway? Marriage doesn’t force you to have it (except from a religious perspective, and as has already been said, we live in a secular society so the argument is fallacious).
There is no such thing as normal, Fedup. So please, instead of trying to deny it, try and find a way to deal with it. And humanely please.
To flohri1754. This has nothing to do with haters coming out of the cupboard at all. It’s about people genuinely who believe this is wrong on every level. It seems to me that there will only ever be one solution that you will all except regardless which way a vote may go. It should have been conducted at a referendum at the last election. I do agree that a plebiscite is a complete waste of taxpayers money.
To Steve Laing. Just the point I want to make. There can only ever be one outcome for you people. It doesn’t matter what anyone says to any of you. You twist and turn everything to your way of thinking. People have the right to marry no matter what their physical circumstances are, just not with the same sex! Thank God there are people who are religious enough to know and still believe that it is wrong regardless of what people say around them. I for one stand up for my convictions and for my God! No I don’t have a problem with gays. I don’t socialise with them outside of work but I work with them and they are very nice people. Let whatever happens, happens because I know I will be unable to do anything about it anyway. It’s in the people’s hands.
Thank you Jennifer. My thoughts exactly.
Australia is a Secular State as written into the Constitution. Surely, by definition that would mean that religious or spiritual beliefs of any kind CANNOT have any bearing on a member’s decision.
@King1394. In my opinion, the referendum on the Republic was enabled to be hijacked by little johnny coward by our shining light of a pm, who was then the ”leader” of the pro Republicans. The member (apt) for wentworth should have stood his ground and insisted on a simple Yes/No, but didn’t want to besmirch his quest for the pmship in case he had got things wrong so he went with a bob each way and Australia as a whole lost.
”…..and a poisonous hatred for anyone who doesn’t fit a narrow definition of ‘normal’….”. NORMAL. Adjective. Conforming to the standard or the common type. Stupid to the point of the Moronic, Homophobic, Religious Nut Job, Misogynistic, Xenophobic racist, Idealist zealot, Voldemurdochian Lapdog. Member of hillsong or supporter of catholic church sponsored paedophiles etc, etc…. (Definition of the mad monk too really)
As for the rest of us. Line on the left, One cross each….
At the next general election, which I predict will be another DD in about 2 years time, may Iceland happen to them all.
@Fedup. It’s not my cup of tea either, but I have friends who are in that situation,, and I would rather see them be able to make that choice and be happy than have some fool decude for them that they are WRONG. It makes NO difference to MY life.
Fedup, I believe Christianity is genuinely wrong on every level. One only needs to look at all the wars in the past 2000 years fought in the name of religion to agree to its immorality. However, I do not demand people are not allowed to go to Church (or even build a church in my neighbourhood). As long as they don’t start preaching on my front lawn and invading my privacy, they are free to worship their misguided gods. Unless gay couples are f**king on your front lawn, you really have no right to demand anything against them. We are supposed to live in a free secular society with basic equal rights for all.
To Fedup: If people believe something is “genuinely wrong on every level” they don’t have to do it.
There is no right to impose your genuinely held beliefs onto someone who doesn’t share them.
Maree, if that was to me, you’re welcome.
King, yes, thanks for explaining the difference between referenda & plebiscites & yes, the parliament should do its job & deal with this.
Flohri, I think referenda are only used when it’s necessary to change the constitution? I’m not certain.
Fedup, I take strong issue with your description of ssm as “not normal”
What on earth do you mean by that?
Jaquix, thank you. And I agree.
John HowHard-was the founding fu”here –i *mean* Father of the* not the 3rd but *forth right*
Australian Nasty Party.
What we are seeing unfold is the legacy left by the Horrid HowHard Years
that descensitized the population of empathy and respect for fellow citizens who cannot be pigeon holed into the John and Janette Ma and Pa Kettle 1950’s backward rear view mirror image of where these public purse pilferers want all Australians to be placed.
Not untill the influence of these Nasty Party founders– flounder will the nastiness foisted upon us subside.
“Nasty” in some ways such a minor term to describe the Ruling Rabble but how, in its (as you have said) banality and very ordinariness, perfectly pitched to delineate the character of these mediocrity’s. I think of Bookshelves Brandis and his gutting of the Arts and the sheer vileness of the imagination bereft Wunderkind Paterson and Timmy Twat Wilson importing their “values” from the IPA into parliament in order to further lay waste to what remains of a social contract.
Hmmm.. nasty, like the small minded, selfish values of Loopy Leyonhjelm and Bestiality Bernardi…… Oi… what a bunch.
An Opposition’s job is to oppose, remember? Labor and the rest should simply and unrelentingly say Nope, Nope, Nope to anything and everything the Turnbott government proposes until it crumbles and falls. And, at every opportunity, demand a new election. It is the only just strategy!
Bernardi and his ilk just can’t comprehend a penis going up the Khyber pass. They’re still shocked by this revelation.They probably giggle and make obscene jokes about it in private.Whilst many a conservative have gone soft on their aversion to Gay Marriage.That’s why some just don’t get it as many just have sex and some make love.
It’s so predictable.Aided and of course promoted by ALL of the MSM aka the LNP’s MSM.
The Australian Mediaocracy continues…. And guess what: If Labor and/or the Greens helped pass the non-biding vote on SSM to take place.Then the LNP’s MSM would attack Labor and/or Greens for going back on their promise to be against the non-biding vote. AKA The LNP’s MSM usual “framing” of whatever Labor and/or Greens do or don’t do is ALWAYS WRONG.
The real reality and truth on this issue is: Labor and Greens are against this non-biding vote that will cost over $160 million.It’s a WASTE OF MONEY that parliament can do for FREE.It’s also hypocritical of the LNP to claim we have a “spending problem” when they want to WASTE MONEY on an issue that can be decided for FREE. Also,it’s the predictable LNP’s MSM UNDEMOCRATIC BIAS,that’s covering up the FACT that Malcolm Turnbull is GUTLESS and this is BAD LNP POLICY.
Fedup, homosexuality is normal and natural. Every intelligent species has a proportion of its population that is homosexual. It really is as normal as red hair or left-handedness.
Human society benefits greatly from gays because they contribute far more to society than you’d expect from their numbers. Many of the greatest thinkers, technologists, inventors, artists, writers, musicians, and leaders have always been homosexual. We disadvantage gays at our peril.
Marriage was established way before religion.PERIOD!
The plebisite diverts attention away from;
We have the worst government . since 1949 and it’s the LNP,……As the Australia Institute’s research in June found – across a broad range of economic measures, the Abbott/Turnbull government has performed the worst of any Australian government since 1949. Economist Jim Stanford’s report examines economic performance across 12 indicators – including GDP per capita, the unemployment rate, employment growth and the growth of real business investment and intellectual property investment …
Lance, interesting fact: Marjorie Main, who played Ma Kettle was lesbian. 🙂
Miriam
Alan Turing, one of my heroes, is a good example.
Saved England and then was hounded to suicide.
Jennifer, ‘Fedup’ is our resident nutter who sits in wait for someone to say something good about ‘boat people’ or ‘Muslims’, or something bad about Pauline Hanson and she springs to life.
Harquebus,
By conservatives, I’ll bet, who in real life in the UK hold the record for non-heterosexual behaviour, past, present and future.
IMHO the main reason to have a plebiscite it is to create a division in society. When this is achieved the opposition becomes weak.
It is a technique used and in use by many ideological right inclined governments and oppositions around the world.
Even the very gay Oscar Wilde was all for marriage, at his time it wasn’t about SSM:
“Damn it, sir, it is your duty to get married. You can’t be always living for pleasure.”
If he lived today he would have been rooting for the SSM.
Fedup,
you are taking on a role which you cannot actually justify. You are telling people who love someone of the same sex how they can express their love- and then you tell them they cannot marry. You cannot do that.
Perhaps you could look in a sex manual for sexual behavior between consenting adults of the opposite sex and see which acts you disapprove of. Then you could shout out that such acts (that you disapprove of) are not natural are not allowed, and the people involved cannot marry.
See how far you get with that. You would be told to mind your own business. So also in the matter of SSM.
By all means have your opinion, but you have to ACCEPT that no one need follow your opinion. Whatever you think to be normal in matters of sex and gender, there are EXCEPTIONS.
helvityni: Oscar had a quote for all the Paradoxes’ of life. And he would have been rooting all right.
Miriam-Very interesting( love trivia )-but was trying to point out the backward forced repressive world the Kirribillihillbillies- Howard’s had set the time machine to take us backwards in time to their own Wollstencraft no poof’s allowed lifestyle.
For the edification of fedup, and anyone else who might be interested.
Sodomy, which is different to homosexuality, is a sexual act that is utilised/performed?? more often by HETEROSEXUAL males than by gay men,
I think it has something to do with the fact that, as a gay sex worker I used to drive for described it one night, ”It’s f*cking painful, and you don’t want to do it every time you make love.”
Let Parliament vote and get it done with.
It is a nasty government on all levels and one that would rather die than tell the truth, on principle.
Gangey 1959: I don’t know the stats, but I do know you’re right about anal sex being a heterosexual as well as homosexual act.
Strange how these facts are so ignored…
Helvi, a very apt description of what Oscar might be doing right now. 🙂
Freethinker: spot on.
Ah, OK, Michael, thank you.
Jim, how true, and marriage has had many motives, the romantic being the most recent.
Not a great fan of it myself, but if heterosexuals are allowed to do it, so should everyone else be.
Lord John, I think another commenter has pointed out that anal sex is a common heterosexual practice as well.
I don’t know Bernardi’s position on that, so to speak.
lawrencewinder: if you look up the definition of nastiness it’s actually pretty full on.
I know if I describe someone as nasty it’s always with a shudder.
But it has been co-opted into urban slang and somewhat defanged.
Glenn K, well said.
Any port in a storm.
For my part, just watching more of it on teev and again and again respected commentators are asking what Van Badham asked on the Drum, that is why is $160 million being wasted on a plebiscite when a simple parliamentary vote would sort it?
I say this in light of Turnbulls near hysteria on faux “budget repair” also this evening.
If we have to live within our means how about getting things sorted in the right place with a minimum of fuss or is Trunbull scared of a few bible bashers.
As for tight arseholes, how can they demand tax cuts for the rich, throw money around like a person with no arms on defence surveillance and detentions and then demand people who are victims of neo lib policy pay with cuts to their dole, having already been driven out of the employment market by offshoring and 457 visas?
I should note that anal sex tends to be a male thing rather than a homosexual thing. Lesbians, in my experience, rarely indulge in anal sex. The religious right-wing nutters in the government who seem obsessed with penises and bums (and who notably have penises themselves) apparently don’t realise that half of all homosexuals don’t have penises and little interest in those nutters’ obsessions.
Why is it, I wonder, do so many right-wing religious extremists tie themselves in such a knot about “misuse” of penises. I happen to know a number of gay men who don’t practise anal sex at all.
I get this image in my mind of a bunch of people standing around — some gay males, some lesbians, some well-adjusted straight males and females, and some religious extremists. We see thought bubbles of what each of the people is thinking about, and only the religious nutters are thinking about penises and bums. They’re sick because they hate, and are repelled by, their own thoughts, but instead of accepting responsibility for it they redirect that hate and repulsion towards others. Weird.
Hear, hear Miriam. To my mind, it appears the disgust masks a fear that might resemble them.
Fedup, what is your definition of “the same sex” when deciding who gets to marry and who does not?
Do you look at the chromosomes and sort into XX, XY and other categories? If so, why is that relevant to the marriage laws recognising (or not recognising) a life partnership? And if you go by chromosomal arrangement, why is no chromosomal test required in order to marry?
And then what of the “other” group, those who don’t have “normal” XX or XY arrangements? Who would you allow them to marry? Would you, like Howard’s legal definition apparently does, refuse to allow them to marry at all? Why?
Or do you look at the genitalia? If so, why do you think that controls who does/does not have their life partnership recognised by marriage law? And then why is no genital inspection required in order to marry?
And what of those who have ambiguous genitalia and aren’t clearly one sex or the other or clearly have characteristics of both? Who do you allow them to marry? No-one? Anyone? Why?
Or is it the general physical appearance that matters? If so, why? Is it to protect other people’s from feeling “icky” if they think a couple might be composed of two men or two women or is there a better reason?
And if it is purely about general physical appearance, why isn’t there some pre-marriage test to ensure that the “woman” looks sufficiently female and the “man” looks sufficiently male? And who gets to decide where to draw the line?
And then what about those individuals with Androgen Insensitivity Disorder who have “normal” male chromosomes but due to the disorder have developed a body that looks very female indeed? Who do you allow them to marry?
Or is it about gender presentation? If so, why does that control who does/does not get to marry? What about people whose gender presentation changes, such as gender fluid and transgender people? Do you change your mind every time a gender fluid person changes their presentation? For a transgender person do you change your mind about who they get to marry at some point in the transition process? Which point, and why?
Once you start to think about it in the light of modern knowledge, it’s a lot harder to come up with a solid definition of “same sex” that can be used to make a good case for marriage inequality (providing we ignore the obvious issue of inequality under the law).
😀 heheheh “a fear that might resemble them” well put Jennifer Meyer-Smith.
Joss Whedon is a brilliant writer. I remember some dialogue he wrote for a TV episode where one guy was being a little homophobic and another says pointedly, “You know what homophobia really means about you, don’t you.” The implication of deeply closeted, self-hating homosexuality hung in the air.
Lotharsson, great comment! [applause]
I am sad that people like Fedup cannot understand that a human infant in embryo develops into one of a broad range of sexual orientations, all usually capable of loving and wanting to be loved. If there is a God, then he is responsible for this and if only the straight male and female are acceptable to him, then he has a lot to answer for!
Thanks Miriam.
I would really like an answer from a marriage inequality advocate such as Fedup to those kinds of questions, as I’ve been posing them on and off for many a year and I can’t recall a single attempt to grapple with them.
Readers can draw their own conclusions from that.
Lotharsson, great post.
J Myeyer-Smith: Projection, displacement, deflection: all the psychological nomenclature for: I’m scared of what I feel & I disgust myself & that’s intolerable so I’ll put it all on someone else & hate them instead.
Miriam, reading your post brought home to me just how intrusive into private lives the anti ssm lobby are.
What the hell does it matter how people sexually express themselves to anyone but the people involved?
The homophobic lobby really need to get their heads and fantasies out of other peoples’ bedrooms.
Their obsession reveals the unsatisfactory paucity of their own bedroom activities. Why else spend so much time thinking about other peoples’?
Good point Jennifer Wilson. That paucity may go some way to explaining why Christian fundamentalists have one of the highest divorce rates of any group in society.
I noticed in my reading this morning that a hateful pastor in USA who loudly preached that the 54 people killed in the recent mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub “got what they deserved” has been arrested on charges of child molestation. It always seems to go this way. Those who exhibit the most screechingly loud hate against gays turn out to be redirecting their own self-hate onto others. Really makes me wonder about Corey Bernardi, George Christensen, and the rest of the hate-brigade in the dysfunctional LNP.
There are people on here implying that they are gay because they were born that way and that’s a lie! You cannot prove that and that’s fact…. You make a choice every time
I’d like to note well in advance that once you guys get your gay marriage in. The next crowd of freaks will be seeking to marry animals… Keep it real
Reprobates! How can you prove that you weren’t born gay but made the choice to be a heterosexual?
I know for a fact that I wasn’t interested in sex when I was born.
Hahaha…. Very funny Michael….. Lucky some of us “chose” to be heterosexual or there wouldn’t be anyone born to have this argument…. Lol
You need to give back our word gay also, it means to be happy… Homo and reprobate is what you guys need to call yourselves
Are you implying you’re gay, Reprobates?
Reprobates!, we have pretty good scientific evidence that some people are innately attracted to the “same” sex. We have functional MRI scans that demonstrate their responses to visual and olfactory sexual stimuli are wired the opposite way to classically straight people (not to mention a whole lot of evidence that sexuality is a spectrum, so even dividing people into “gay” and “straight” is incorrect). This is on top of other evidence from as far back as Kinsey many decades prior that non-conscious arousal responses in some people are wired to make them gay rather than straight. Both of those measured sets of responses are not conscious choices and can not be consciously changed – so you are the one who can’t prove your confidently stated assertion that their choice is conscious. (As I say all too often in response to various forms of denialism or right wing nuttery: it’s always projection.)
But even if we didn’t have good evidence, your argument on one level seems to amount to little more than “I don’t identify as gay, therefore no-one legitimately identifies as gay”. That is obviously illogical – but worse that that, it amounts to telling other people that you know their innermost feelings and powerful drives better than they do, which is clearly a lie. Again, it’s always projection.
SSM isn’t even an issue about sex – that’s already legal.
Luthersson….. The responses your talking of in an MRI environment are learned behaviours from someone lying to you and telling you it’s OK to feel that way about someone of the same sex as you. It does not prove you were born that way
Reprobates!, you’re continuing to spout nonsense. What part of it’s not under conscious control did you find too hard to understand? Then there is the fact that these responses are found in people who have been consistently told all their lives that it’s NOT OK to be same-sex attracted, as Kinsey’s research showed almost a whole lifetime ago.
And then there’s the far more fundamental problem with your “logic”: it requires one to feel same-sex attracted before one can be allegedly “lied to in order to promote learned behaviour”, because intellectually accepting that it’s OK to feel “that way” does not generate those feelings. I fully accept that it’s OK to feel “that way” about someone regardless of their sex, but I am only attracted to one of them, and no amount of telling me it’s OK to be attracted to the other will change that fact. In that case, the attraction must exist prior the alleged learning of behaviour, and it’s attraction that defines whether one is gay or not.
And that’s before we get to the strangest part of your personal theory of gayness: that so many people would choose to go against their own innate sexuality by choosing to act gay when they are not at all same sex attracted, and would do so despite the very strong societal disapproval (and physical danger, up to and including death threats) and a whole host of other disadvantages that have been experienced as a result.
Your conclusion that requires telling a large number of other people they’re lying about their innate experiences that you by definition have no insight into. If we were to do the same to you we’d say “Reprobates!, you’re clearly a raging homosexual who is choosing to repress it by lying to yourself that you’re innately straight, and that any gay attraction you experience is not innate and hence not who you are, it’s generated entirely by lies that someone else told you. We know for a fact that you’re lying about this despite you vehemently denying it.” How would that feel? Would you think as a result that obviously we know you better than you do, or that we were talking nonsense because we don’t and can’t?
You appear to be engaged in a very strong case of motivated reasoning to try and justify a conclusion you seek rather than reasoning from the evidence to whatever conclusion it points to. Readers might speculate as to the motivation for your reasoning, but more importantly you might find it useful to do so.
And we haven’t even touched on the worst part of your argument yet: the unsupported blanket assertion that it’s objectively not OK to feel that way about someone who is “same sex” (and you’ll first need to tackle my questions above about what “same sex” actually means if you want to argue that point).
Yep, hence my rule of thumb: it’s always projection. (Or if we want to be pedantic, the hypothesis that it’s projection seems all too plausible all too often.)
Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for Fedup to define what they mean by “same sex”.
I went on the Facebook Liberal Party page yesterday just to see what they were saying. I could not believe the spiteful, blame Labor remarks. So I gave them an earful. After three years they still blame Labor for the budget problems. They have had plenty of time between the election and the start of Parliament to put together some policies but No they are still trying to get Abbot’s refused policies through. Are they insane, lazy or just delusional. People of common sense need to tell this nasty lot exactly what we think of them and give them the kicking they deserve.
Reprobates! So how do you explain same sex attraction in those who’ve never been in an MRI environment? Or never been told it’s OK?
Methinks the attraction comes before anybody’s attempts at explanation.
What made you attracted to the opposite sex? Or no sex at all if you’re asexual?
It’s a human rights matter. Marriage Equality.
*Snort*
Miriam English: My favourite story recently is the one about the fundamentalist pastor who claimed God sends floods to drown gays. Shortly afterwards he lost his house in a flood. Almost made me believe in god.
Reprobate, if you think it’s a conscious decision how do you explain the gay penguins, dolphins, horses, lions, geese? Do you think they consciously decide to be gay?
How do you explain the gays who have grown up in religious families who hate being gay and have tried over and over not to be, even admitting themselves to clinics to “cure” themselves so they could be straight. Heart-rendingly, it never works and they they spend years being ashamed of the unchangeable nature of who they are and trying to live a lie because hateful people tell them they have to. It means they get married to someone in an outwardly normal marriage, but their poor partner never has the fulfillment of love because the marriage is a sad fake with the gay person trying to be straight and forever failing. Why would anybody want to force people through that?
Did you choose who you fell in love with? (I’m presuming you’ve felt love.) Or did it just hit you like a bolt from the blue? Do you think you could have switched off that adoration?
If you are conscious of a time that you chose to be straight then I’m sorry to have to break it to you, but there’s a strong chance that you’re gay and this is why you’re so angry about gay people: you’re dreading the truth about yourself and hating others because of it.
Nobody gets to choose who they fall in love with.
waste of time arguing with the indoctrinated.
The religious right cannot concede gay is natural without questioning faith and that is a super impossibility.
They cannot see breasts without thinking tits.
They cannot see gay love without sex.
I still remember the catholic fear of ‘poofters’, quenton crisp and on one occasion the bashed face of a ‘soft’ 10 year old boy. But felt the breath of fresh air that was don dunston.
ps good luck to the endeavours of the independents wilkie and mcgowan
Yes wam. Good post.