Horror movie

The past week I’ve been making an admittedly feeble attempt at studying, amidst a sea of distractions—this blog included. In an effort to avoid any actual study, I bring you the weeks’ news highlights that I’ve heard on the radio while in a state of semiconsciousness as I slept through my morning alarms.

Candidates ‘should declare sexual preference’
1 November, 2007

The Family First candidate in the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt says voters have a right to know the sexual preference of all candidates contesting the federal election.

Apparently being gay makes you a lesser politician, according to FF candidate Ben Jacobsen at least. Actually that’s not quite accurate, being gay doesn’t (necessarily) make you less of a politician in Jacobsen’s eyes, it merely makes you a less of a representative: “Look I think this is a public office, this is a person that's going to represent Leichhardt in our House of Representatives… I think the public have a right to know the values that you’re going to pursue in Parliament.” Of course, this is in no way related to his questioning the sexuality of opposing liberal candidate for his seat (oh the irony). Dickhead.

Pell backs discrimination against gays
30 October, 2007

The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, has argued in favour of maintaining discrimination against gay couples, saying it is wrong to equate the position with any sort of racial discrimination.

Pell not only wants discrimination against homosexual (or indeed any non-heterosexual) Australians to continue, but he wants it condoned. Not only does Pell display a massive lack of Christian kindness and compassion, but he misses the point rather spectacularly in saying “I think what we’re talking about here is making sure that while we remove unfair discrimination, that we do not allow a very small part of the population to force their model for relationships to be adopted as the community norm, when it isn't.” Gay marriage (or even just the simple removal of practical legal discriminations in the 58 federal pieces of legislation which discriminate against non-heterosexual Australians) is not about foisting “our model for relationships” as a community norm. It will never be a norm. A norm is, by definition, of the majority. But being the norm does not mean being ‘normal’, and not being the norm does not mean being inferior at all. Only people in same sex relationships can get same sex relationship recognition…everyone else can carry on as they have thus far been privileged enough to do. Fuckwit.