Two sisters

Liz told me this morning that she and Kate interviewed each other; I thought perhaps my readers might be interested to read the two interviews, entitled "Behind Every Man Is A Good Woman-An Expose Into The Lives Of Two Women Fighting For Their Loved One’s Survival".

Liz's interview, by Kate.
Kate's interview, by Liz.

Sick cycle carousel, part 3

May will be upon us in one week. With May comes the nine year anniversary of my various illnesses and trials. Last year I wrote a rather difficult post, Sick cycle carousel, documenting the progression of my various conditions, depression, and to a small extent my coming out journey. Below is the next part in the Sick cycle series. You might want to read parts one and two.

It seems that the ending of part two was a little bit too optimistic. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy (and I certainly was at the time I wrote that) but I can’t really say I’m all that content anymore. My back has been a lot of trouble lately, I’m downing drugs at an alarming rate, and I’m still kinda upset about Sister’s attitude in The Talk.

January 2007
After the loss of Pop, life was less sunny. I shepherded in the new year with Liz in a quiet ceremony with sparklers, champagne and Roger Rabbit. I spent most of January with The Beach Crew at Cal’s parents’ holiday house up north and on the Central Coast. My health waxed and waned, I was still popping pain killers left, right and centre, but for the most part I was excited at the prospect of starting at Sydney Uni in March.

February-April 2007
I turned 23 on the first and on the nineteenth we celebrated Pop’s birthday for the first time without him. Then I started uni and met a lot of really intelligent people who intimidated me very quickly. I had classes on three days a week, and as a general rule I was able to make the journey to Sydney at least twice a week. I did well in both subjects, gaining high distinctions in both. I enjoyed my time but the extra stress, walking, and sitting up took a toll on my already fragile health. Many nights I felt trapped, a youthful spirit caged up in an aching, ailing prison of a body.

I met Kate in March and we quickly formed a close bond. Within no time I began to refer to her as my sister, and her son, Lance, refered to me as Uncle Dan. Along with Liz, whom I consider my sister also, Kate is one of my best friends.

The day after St Patrick’s day I came out to Mum and Dad, which was, as you can imagine, a huge burden off my mind. After some initial teething problems, Mum came around; Dad didn’t give a shit from the start…finally I felt more myself in my own home.

May-August 2007
As the realisation that coming out to Sister was inevitable dawned on me, I suddenly suffered a bout of migraines at a rate of nearly two per week. Dr KHS, whom I started to believe was loosing his touch, advised cutting pain meds to see if they were the cause. Within a week or so I knew this wasn’t the case and went back to the normal dosage, however the migraines persisted.
As well as being migraine-prone, I found myself becoming depressed. The reason wasn’t clear at the time but with the benefit of hindsight I can see that it was all related to the intense sense of foreboding welling up inside me about Sister’s reaction. I sought shelter from the migraines and the depression in sleep. I was also struck at about this time that I forget how it feels to be totally healthy. Having been sick for eight years at this point, my last healthy memory was at the age of 14.

I came out to Sister on the 27th of May. We never spoke of it in any meaningful way for ten months. The migraines stopped soon after. The depression, on the other hand, continued. I felt trapped by illness and circumstance, hopeless, locked in a constant battle between my heart and my head.

September-October 2007
As the pain in my legs got worse and worse, Dr KHS switched the anti-convulsant (which I take as it blocks neural pain signals in the brain). I had every side-effect that the package warned against. I was nauseous, my knees were constantly inflamed, I was dizzy, spaced-out and all-in-all did a fabulous Anna Nicole Smith impression. I felt like a lab rat. The pain did go away after some time but the side-effects were way too much to bear. I couldn’t function at all and ultimately after a fortnight I switched back. The pain came back, followed by the vicious cycle of pain-drugs-nausea-sleep-pain. The high dose of pain killers left me in a perpetual haze. To add insult to injury I picked up gastro at some point.

I outed myself to the Family-at-Large by a rather cunning plan involving step cousins, the FAL’s natural propensity to gossip, and Facebook. Finally everyone knew and I didn’t have to lift more than a finger.

We sold Pop’s house. That was difficult.

November 2007-February 2008
I went to a neurologist; it was a waste of a morning. He was an odd little man and he told me nothing I didn’t already know. I did, however, get some stronger pain killers which made like a lot easier to deal with. I also changed anti-depressants from an SSRI (which I had been taking since the age of 17) to a tricyclic, which blocks pain signals as well as stabilising mood. I changed pain killers again and finally had a winner. CTs and X-rays revealed nothing. I started smoking weed to help with the stabbing pain in my back and shoulders. It helped too, it was a lot of fun in fact, but all in all no cause was found, nothing really helped in any permanent way… and so it continued. I struggled to get my head above water for a time but after I found my footing with the tricyclic antidepressant, my mood did eventually even out.

February 2008 onwards
I moved to Glebe into a house full of strangers. The Space Cadet makes life interesting. The Optimist and I are becoming good friends. The Guyanan and The Accountant I don’t have much to do with. Though my depression seemed to be under control, I was suddenly gripped with anxiety at having to fend for myself.

The pain in my back and shoulders continued to get worse; I continued popping pills (and have made a few faux-pas while under the influence…). As I write this, I am doped up and as soon as the effects wear off I will be writing again. Last night I got no sleep. I’m going to a chiropractor or physio on Monday. Someone has to be able to do something.

Life has to be better from this.

You say you just want to feel...

You say you just want to feel
the way you used to feel
the way you should feel.

Man, I feel like shit today. My back is in a full blown analgesic-resistant revolt, my stomach is drowning in pain killers, and I can’t sleep or get comfortable.

Last night was spent tossing and turning, pill popping, and clock watching. I woke every two hours or so. I hugged my teddy bear tightly and prayed all night. And in the morning I woke, unrefreshed, still pained, exhausted and alone.

There is more to life than this. I just want to feel the way I used to feel, the way I should feel.

Is that too much to ask?

Lest we forget

This morning I was woken at 3am, merely two-and-a-half hours after having gone to sleep (an by now I should have known that “I’ll go to bed at nine” just ain’t gonna happen). I left the house at 3,30am. At the bus stop I met an elderly couple, Kay and Bob, and ended up staying with them for the morning.

I arrived at Martin Place cenotaph at 4am, one in thirty-five thousand. We tried to get as close as we could but in a sea of damp people it wasn’t easy. The service began at 4,30am because that is when ANZAC troops landed at Gallipoli.

Wending their way home after an ANZAC Eve function in the early hours of ANZAC Day 1927, ive members of the Australian Legion of Ex-Service Clubs…observed an elderly woman laying a sheaf of flowers on the cenotaph. One of them asked the woman if she would allow them to join her in tribute and all bowed their heads in silent prayers.

At a subsequent meeting of the Legion, it was decided that a Wreath Laying Ceremony would take place at the Sydney cenotaph at 0430 hours every ANZAC Day. This was the time that the first troops landed at Anzac Cove in 1915.

In 1928, 150 people were present, and in the following year an open invitation brought 250…By 1935, the 20th anniversary of ANZAC, attendance had reached 10,000 and in 1939, with the threat of another war, 20,000 were there.

As the speeches started, rain came down and a sea of umbrellas went up like a giant roof covering us all. After a short time I had to sit down on the wet ground, leaving half my right leg waterlogged and cold. At the end of the service the street lights were turned off as the Last Post played on the bugle—it has always given me the chills—followed by a minute’s silence.

I didn’t have a wreath to lay at the cenotaph, so I lay a sprig of rosemary for Pop alongside the wreaths. Kay informed me I was “obviously well brought up” for getting up at such a ridiculously early hour to go to the dawn service, and at my age no less. “Well”, I said, “the ANZACS will be dead soon. Then the WW2 vets, and so on. And someone has to remember them. That is why I’m going today.”

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Lest we forget.

Not for the weak of stomach

Though as a general rule I am a very squeamish person, one who cannot tollerate any kind of blood on television (or off television for that matter), I am not usually one to actually dry heave when confronted with something particularly grisly. I’ve always considered this disinclination towards heaving to be my last saving grace in the iron stomach stakes. Until today.

I went into the kitchen today to fill up my water jug and was greeted with the strong smell of the Space Cadet’s dinner as it simmered on the stove. He had left a frypan full of baked beans on the burner, with some kind of very pungent cheese bubbling away in the centre. The smell was rancid. When I first caught a whiff of it, I remember thinking it was rather unpleasant. It wasn’t until I was over at the sink, next the stove, filling up the jug that I felt my stomach constrict as I dry wretched into my hand. I picked up the half full jug and fled the room, trying not to projectile vomit over the walls as I went.

In my room I could still smell it. I put the jug on the table, stuffed a scarf into the gap under the door and curled up in the foetal position on the floor in the far corner humming quietly to myself.

Just the thought of it unsettles me. I am never eating baked beans again.

The last straw

In my room I’ve got a makeshift washing line set up by tying a fluoro lime green cord from an air vent to the wardrobe door, and back up to the other air vent.

I set it up to dry some shirts about a month ago when it rained after I had hung the load out. Now, since it has been raining and generally miserable weatherwise of late, I was forced to do my washing and hang it all inside. I had two shirts, a pair of jeans, a few pairs of undies, three tea-towels, two bath towels and an assortment of socks to dry. I left the tea-towels in the laundry and started loading up the washing line in my room. I started with the heaviest items, the bath towels, at the bottom and worked my way out. The line filled up fairly quickly, so after the two bath towels, both shirts, the jeans and the undies were up I was left only with a few small spaces for the socks. I picked up one sock from the basket and laid it on the line. The wardrobe, in my peripheral vision, started leaning forward slowly, destined to crash into my TV. I removed the sock and righted the wardrobe. I placed the sock back on the line; the same thing happened.

I now understand the phrase “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.

This is what is screaming in my head at the moment:

Our fabulous graffiti tunnel messages were whitewashed on Friday. No one quite knows why, but we know that the university hasn’t seen fit to whitewash the tunnel in quite some time. But Pride Week was fun. My back hates me, and lets me know this at every available opportunity. Consequently, I am often without the faculty of coherent speech and/or any meaningful level of typing ability or, at the very least, kinda spacey. It made its hatred plain in forcing me to leave the Queer Debut at like eleven-fucking-o’clock with back pain so strong I felt it in my stomach. I am still avoiding Sister, which is, luckily, insanely easy with her being in another state at the moment. That said, however, she’ll be back for World Youth Day and I’m sure we’ll be thrown into the same physical vicinity at one point or another. Not looking forward to that. I went to a family thing today and the Family-at-large persisted in asking me “How’s Sister doing?” I just smiled meekly and replied “I haven’t spoken to her in a while, but I imagine she’s fine”. We had fun, my baby cousins are so cute. As I trudged up the stairs to their flat, Zoe came tearing out the front door and crash tackled me into a big hug. I nearly cried. I needed that. I was looking forward to sitting down with Lala and telling her all of this but she had already left by the time I got there. While I’m sure that any resentment I now feel towards Sister will soften by July—it always does—she is not going to be pleased when she learns that I am involved in organising a workshop about gay and lesbian youth. I’ve told mum & dad about it, but I think they know better than to tell her about it, and I’m certainly not telling her until I absolutely have to. I don’t know what I think or feel about her right now. I’ve kinda shut down. Some seconds I hate her, others I love her intensely, but mostly I avoid the topic at all costs. Except in the middle of the sleepless nights, of course, when it’s no holds bar in terms of what I think about; that is when the inner demons come out to play. She’s gotten inside my head and I fucking hate it. I thought the other night what if she’s right? Where does that leave me? Or any of us? What shits me the most is that she has gotten to me at all. And I don’t want her to know she’s gotten to me.

So if I seem distant, please bear with me.

Pissed, proud, moved, exhausted.

After all the drama and emotional upheaval of the last two weeks, I am a little frazzled and rough round the edges. For this reason, I’m going to keep this short.

Pissed. Last week I received an email from my Sister informing me that there was a public talk being held shortly about homosexuality and the church. I know the speaker; he’s a tool. A hypocritical tool no less, having preached chastity while having a boyfriend (figure that one out). And Sister knows that I feel this way about him. I tried not to let it get to me, but this didn’t last long. Soon I was well pissed off so I just clicked the little red X on the email, certain that if I replied to her I would likely say something I forget. So I’m not in a hurry to resume contact any time soon. What annoys me the most is that she has gotten to me, but I really don’t want her to know it. I don’t want my disenchantment at her to be mistaken for any disenchantment with regards to my beliefs.

Proud. However this week it is Pride week at uni; and there’s nothing like a little bit of fairy dust and spray paint to liven a boy’s mood. The pride week program is pretty full on, there’s definitely something for everyone. On Monday there was a self-defence workshop, and while I didn’t participate a whole lot, but in light of Lance’s concerns I made the effort to go to allay his fears. Last night we had “Coming out by candlelight”, an intimate evening of funny, touching, sad, and poignant coming out stories in good company (in a room whose capacity was well and truly ignored so it was a little muggy… and the melting plastic cups weren’t pleasant either, but you over look these things). This was followed by a trip to the graffiti tunnel to paint slogans and pictures on the walls with bright colourful gay paint. Good times.

Moved. On Monday night the drama society at school put on a special showing of The Laramie Project as a joint launch of Pride week and the Laramie Project. All I can say is “wow”. We saw one act, and to be honest I don’t know if I’ll make it through the whole thing when I see it next week.

Exhausted. And now I’m lying in bed with a fucken back brace on. Yes, my friends, you read that correctly. There’s nothing like a back brace to inhibit physical freedoms like, for example, being able to twist at the waist or bend over without crunching your stomach on straps. On the flip-side, there’s nothing like it to make my stomach look like I’ve been working out slavishly under my shirt. My back is fucked and I’m tired. Hopefully it passes soon.

Locked out

By Tuesday night I was feel pretty sorry for myself after The Talk and the ensuing pondering and analysing. Suddenly I realised that my Sister, whom I do love dearly despite our differences, is not going to change her mind or beliefs, in the same way that I am not going to change mine. I knew this all along, of course, but it finally hit me on Tuesday night and suddenly I was overtaken by a wave of melancholy, the likes of which I haven’t seen for some time. I plodded through the evening: cooking dinner, eating, washing up. I did it all silently and moodily. By eleven o’clock I was ready to crash into my welcoming bed, to sleep through the drudgery.

I went out the front for a final cigarette. With all the crap that’s been going on lately—living with the Space Cadet, suppressing murderous rages and whatnot—I’ve been smoking way more than is perhaps generally considered as healthy. But fuck it. Anyway I went out the front and sat on the chair on the front steps, watching the traffic roar past. The sound of traffic has always been calming for me, like waves on a beach. I stood, after extinguishing the cigarette, and reached into my pocket to get my keys out. There was nothing there.

I checked my other pockets, all were equally empty. I remembered putting my keys into my backpack, ready for the next day. I was locked out. I stood for a moment and assessed the situation: I had no keys, no phone, no wallet, no shoes. I swore rather loudly and started the journey around the block, so I could get into the house by the back door, hoping that the door to my bedroom was not locked too.

Arriving at the back of the house my heart sank. The bedroom door was locked too. I went into the kitchen and looked at the benches, hoping that I had absentmindedly put them there while doing the washing up, all the while knowing exactly where they were: in my bag, in my room. Finally I walked out the back to go and find The Optimist so I could borrow his phone. I guessed he was in the common courtyard, drinking and being rowdy (which, I might add, doesn’t bother me one bit except that there have been so many complaints that the housing office has called a compulsory meeting to discuss noise pollution for all residents…not happy about that at all).

As I stepped out the back door I nearly collided with The Optimist, and very nearly scared the shit out of him. (He got me back two nights later: I was standing in the space outside the back door, lighting a cigarette, when he rounded the corner, rather quickly. This made me yelp in a very unmanly fashion and jump backwards, crashing into the two screen doors and coming to rest against the wall, cigarette and lighter on the ground, heart pounding, mouth yelling “Where the fuck did you come from?? Make some fucken noise next time dammit!”)

I told him the situation and he said, very consolingly, “Ahhh shit man, that sux. Of course you can use my phone; you should come over have a beer with us while you’re waiting for them”. I called security and was given an estimate of a fifteen minute wait. I silently prayed that this would be fifteen actual-minutes, not fifteen tradie-minutes, which would see me waiting for two and a half hours (one tradie-minute is roughly equal to about ten actual-minutes.

In the end the security guy arrived after about twenty actual-minutes (or two tradie-minutes) and let me in. I was so awake now after the night’s drama that I took up The Optimist’s offer to go over to the courtyard and have a few beers (or water, in my case) with many of the people living in our street.

It was so nice to spend some time with people who know nothing about me or my melodramatic dramas, especially when they are in varying states of drunkenness. So at least the night had a silver lining, noise complaints notwithstanding.

In denial?

In other news, I am questioning whether Grandma knows I’m gay, whether she is in denial, or whether she thinks it’s a phase. Sister brought this up during The Talk, since Grandma has asked her the other day if I have a girlfriend. On top of this, Grandma asked me what I’m eating now I’m living alone (worried for my nutrition no doubt) while I had lunch with her and Grandpa in the Queen Victoria Building. When I told her all the things I’m cooking, and on a budget no less, she nodded approvingly and said “You are well trained, you’re going to make a great husband one day!” I was about to say something like “Yes, I’ll make some guy very happy.” But there is a time and place to say these things to your seventy-five year old grandparents, and the Queen Victoria Building at lunch time isn’t it.

On Sunday afternoon I called Tía, who has had trouble with her heart of late, to see how she is. I caught her hurtling down the freeway with Bin in the car, so we all chatted with me on speaker phone. I told them about my Easter, which was pretty good actually, and soon the conversation turned to The Talk. “She will settle down when she’s older, honey,” Tía told me sagely, “these things come with age.” Talk of The Talk eventually lead to the question of Grandma’s comments: is she unaware, in denial or hoping it’s a phase? As I neared the halfway point of the sentence, I thought to myself “Dude, what the fuck are you doing talking about this with her? You know the reaction you’re gong to get!” Never one to disappoint, Tía proclaimed: “Well, I hope it’s a phase too, to be honest.”

What do you say when you aunty says that to you? “Fuck off” was tempting. Though I talk tough when recounting these stories to friends, Liz & Kate chief among those who bear the brunt of my miseries, and sprinkle my hypothetical responses with expletives and all manner of invective, I tend not to use them in real life. This was no different. When recounting the story I said things like “I totally should have told her to get with the fucken programme”, but all I managed in the actual event was a terse “Thanks for being honest with me”, followed by “I wouldn’t hope too hard though…it’s not going anywhere.” She said something like “You never know”, and I told her in no uncertain terms, that I knew. I glanced through the window (I was on the front steps) and noticed the Optimist and his brother, having just emerged from their hungover sleep, were in the kitchen, likely hearing everything I was saying. But I thought fuck it, they’re in no state to judge me after the mess they left in the bathroom.

I emailed U2 to see what he thought about it all. His response was that while he is certain she’s been told, he wonders whether she has “taken it on board as truth or not”. That seems fair. And only time will tell, I guess, but I’m not looking forward to the next gathering of the Family-at-large; girlfriend comments are annoying when one is in the closet, but when one has gone to the trouble of coming out to everyone, they are totally irksome.

Queer eye

On Sunday morning I woke at about nine o’clock. After a brief period of being pissed off that I didn’t sleep in when I could legitimately stay in bed until at least two in the afternoon, I got dressed and went off to morning Mass. As I was leaving I went to the bathroom that The Optimist and I share, there to find little smatterings of dry puke on the toilet seat and one of his shirts (also liberally slathered with the stuff) balled up in the corner. I shut the door and tried not to think of it, and left.

(Incidentally, I have yet to find a church around here that has comfortable seating. It is as if the designers of church pews had design parameters that demanded the seats be so uncomfortable as to prevent parishioners from falling asleep during homilies. Or, at the very least, uncomfortable enough that parishioners’ minds cannot wander because they are too busy trying to arrange themselves in such a way that their bums don’t fall asleep.)

When I arrived back home, at about midday, I went back up to the bathroom and this time discovered a book of The Optimist’s, soaked in a redish liquid and caked with little bits of pre-digested food. Stifling a laugh, I took a photo.

(Incidentally, I haven’t been taking my photos of the day over Easter with all the emotional and physical upheaval, but I have been doing so since the first of April.)

At lunchtime The Optimist and his brother emerged, looking decidedly seedy and hungover. I said hello and he grunted and told me this is the first time he has had a real hangover. I congratulated him and asked who had thrown up on the toilet last night, rather than in it. He shrugged and told me the last memory he has is walking into the common courtyard that the residence houses share, before apologising profusely. I told him I don’t care, I only mention it because I laughed when I saw it, and thanked them both for the entertainment value of the toilet, shirt and book combined. He told me he really liked that book too.

The next night, Monday night, The Optimist returned from the supermarket with a green bag full of groceries. He pulled out a bag of plan flour and told me that he is going to make pancakes with it, and marvelled that some people actually by pre-made pancake mix when all you have to do is add flour, milk and egg together in a bowl. Next he pulled out carpet deodoriser and informed me that someone (he didn’t remember if it was him or his brother) had puked on the carpet in his bedroom.

“That’s great, Optimist, but you can’t just chuck deodoriser on the carpet.” I said.
“Why not?” he asked, somewhat crestfallen.
“Well,” I explained, “you have to get the puke out of the carpet first, then you deodorise it. Otherwise you’re just putting it over the top and eventually the puke that is still firmly embedded in the carpet, will begin to smell again.”
“Oh…right…how do I get it out then?”
“Get a bucket of very hot water with a little bit of soap, dunk an old rag and then scrub the carpet,” I told him, “and then rinse the rag in the water and do it again until the stain is gone.”
He thought for a second. Then: “Would a saucepan do, do you think? We don’t have a bucket, that’s all.”
I shuddered. “I guess so, as long as you disinfect it before you use it to cook something.”
“Right.” Though he said the word with some measure of confidence, his face remained steeped in question marks.
“You want me to show you?”
“Yes please.”


After he had boiled some water in his saucepan, we went upstairs. I sat on his bed and watched as he dunked a tea towel in the soapy water, the steam from which carried the pungent stench of vomit, and scrubbed the carpet clean. After that he got the deodoriser and liberally sprayed it on the carpet and allowed it to sink in. With the job accomplished we went back to the kitchen where he promptly poured the brown water down the sink and sprayed the saucepan with disinfectant.

As I was directing him it occurred to me what a Queer eye for the straight guy relationship we have going.

Dinner

On Wednesday night, the night after The Talk, I had dinner with the parish priest. It wasn’t as a result of The Talk, it was actually organised just before Easter. Despite some disagreements on some fairly fundamental things, homosexuality chief among them, it was a great night.

He’s known me since I was fifteen; he has this uncanny and often totally inconvenient knack for being able to look at a person and surmise what is wrong and then manage to get them to spill all. And I cannot lie to the man. True, I cannot really lie convincingly to many people, but to him it’s impossible.

When I got in the car he asked how I was. “Frazzled.” I answered. Before I knew it I told him about the previous night’s confrontation. As I said the words I thought “What the fuck are you doing!!??” but he didn’t blink. I knew that whatever doctrinal issues he may have, he’d understand where I was coming from in terms of the overwhelming sensation of being sideswiped. “You know Dan,” he said “that whatever disagreements we have you know you can just say ‘I don’t want to talk about this further’ and we’ll move on to something else and it won’t affect our friendship.”

With that caveat in mind, we went over most of the issues that I had discussed with Sister and found, to nobody’s surprise, that he agreed with her on nearly all of them, yet strangely it was nowhere as hard to talk about it with him as it was with Sister. The one disagreement between his view and hers was that Fr said that being gay in and of itself is morally neutral and that any kind of sex (straight or not) outside of marriage is wrong, whereas Sister referred to being gay as a “sickness”.

All in all he seemed to treat me much more gently than Sister, and certainly with much much more of a sense of humour about things. But then he already knew; he knew I was gay before I did. I asked him, point blank, “you knew back then didn’t you?” He replied “Yes, I strongly suspected it. And I gave you so many opportunities to confide in me but you never fucken took any of them!” I laughed. The thing is I can remember a few occasions when I’d been on the cusp of telling him, but something always got in the way to prevent it. But what’s done is done.

Ultimately it was a very cathartic evening in which I was able to get off my chest a day’s worth of frenzied, pent-up frustrations. I was going to go into a bit more detail, but there isn’t really much point… it’s the same old topics, all of which I mentioned in the post about The Talk, so you can use your imaginations.

In the last week there have been some new developments which I’ll write about tomorrow...

My hero

My nephew, Lance, was asked by his teacher to do a drawing about what he did over Easter. He drew an image of a young man being brutally bashed by four men, complete with lots of blood, while onlookers and police stood and did nothing. His caption read:

My friend is innocent. He was walking alone. He was badly hurt by four bad men who have no conscience. I am so sad that I didn't even feel happy about Easter. My Uncle is gay, what if this was him??

The event to which he refers was the bashing of a young gay man by four cowards while onlookers watched. The police treated him like a criminal, telling him that “his kind” belonged in the park beat. The crime was never reported in the newspapers, and to my knowledge few questions have been asked and no arrests have been made.

Lance constantly floors me with his compassion and maturity. It makes my mind spin to think that a child of seven—very mature for his age, I grant you, but seven nonetheless—understands that gay people are not immoral, dirty or deviant, but deserving of the same level of respect and dignity as everyone else, when many adults don’t understand that.

Understandably he’s now very worried about my personal safety. Kate told me that he made me a special rainbow sword to keep in my pencilcase to fend off would-be attackers.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is why Lance is my hero.

Tool

The honourable Brendan Nelson, MP, federal leader of the opposition, has made public his thoughts on queer rights. He states that:

We believe … in relation to people, that families are the foundation of Australian society, I make no apology for saying that a man and a woman is a marriage and that forms a family. I don’t support gay marriage, I don’t support gay adoption and I don’t support gay IVF. But I sure as hell believe very strongly that no Australian should pay a dollar more in tax or receive a dollar less in social security by virtue of his or her sexuality and I will do everything I possibly can from opposition to see that those and other things are delivered.

Effectively he is saying:

“I believe that same-sex couples should be denied social recognition in the form of marriage, adoption of children or access to IVF; in these areas it is acceptable to discriminate on the basis of sexuality. This belies my belief that same-sex relationships are inferior to opposite-sex relationships. On the other hand, I don’t believe that there should be discrimination on the basis of sexuality in the areas of taxation or social security. This belies my belief that although same-sex relationships are inferior, it is my hope that they will be placated by this concession. Furthermore, it shows I am not homophobic, nor is my party.”

I wonder what exactly he was trying to achieve in such an incongruous statement. Yes, it is a breath of fresh air to read this coming from the leader of the liberal party after eleven dark years of having John Howard at the helm, but does he really expect it to hold any water with anyone? Who exactly was he was trying to please with such a blatant compromise?

It can’t be the Christian Right, who will criticise it for giving same-sex couples any kind of recognition, even if it is only in the legal-financial arena and not social recognition—remember that this is a group who want to raise the age of consent for male-male sex and/or reintroduce sodomy laws. It can’t be gay and lesbian lobbies or voters, who will criticise it for denying full equality to same-sex couples in the social recognition arena and family arena.

Now if this is actually what he believes then I think he’s a tool because it makes no sense to discriminate only some of the time, but at least he stands up and says so. If, on the other hand, this was contrived to make both sides happy, then it still shows he’s a tool because it just won’t work.