Brick wall - meet head.
Nov. 20th, 2017 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reynardoNo, not quite as bad as that. But at the moment, it's embarrassing to be Australian. Not only did it take a long and expensive survey to reassure the government that yes, the majority really does want Marriage Equality 1, but the Government is also abandoning the refugees on Manus Island that came to us for asylum.2 
I've been working pretty hard for the Marriage Equality side, and although the survey was a resounding "yes", I know it's up to me to put the hard word on the Government to do their duty and pass a bill that meets those needs. It won't infringe on the rights of any religions - if a church does not want to hold marriage between anything but a man and a woman, they can choose to do that. But some people are trying to claim that shopkeepers do not have to serve people who want their goods for a marriage between, for instance, two men. This, despite the fact that they are not currently allowed to discriminate by refusing to serve people who want their goods for a wild Mardi Gras party. So that's a whole new fight. But I shall keep on.
But tonight I spent some time doing something that I desperately hope will not be a waste of time. Years ago, a citizens' lobby group explained that every letter that gets sent to a politician represents the views not only of that one person, but a thousand people who thought about the issue, thought they should do something, but hadn't quite got around to sending a letter. So each letter can strike fear into the hearts of politicians.
So I wrote to Peter Dutton, the Minister for Being Mean to Refugees.
I do hope it strikes fear into him.
(1) Marriage Equality. Not just Same Sex Marriage, but Marriage that encompasses any two adults who are otherwise free to marry. Any gender (of which there are many), any sex (including Intersex), and staying valid even if they change their gender (unlike currently, where their marriage will be annulled as soon as they do).
(2) The refugees risked death and horrible attacks and all sorts of hardships to come here because their own countries were too dangerous to stay in. Instead of welcoming them, the Australian Government put them in prison camps in other countries. Nearly all of the people turn out to be (don't be too surprised) genuine refugees. The Prime Minister even admitted to Donald Trump that he was only having the asylum seekers who come by boat put on the islands - those that come by plane were allowed in. Now the Government is trying to close the camps, and make the refugees go into communities that do not want them, that attack them, that treat them terribly. So the refugees are refusing to leave the camps. The water was turned off, the shelters pulled down, any shelter or wells the refugees have built get destroyed, there's no food ... you get the idea. We have room here. We have communities ready and willing to take them in. It's only 600 people. They should come here and stay.
I've been working pretty hard for the Marriage Equality side, and although the survey was a resounding "yes", I know it's up to me to put the hard word on the Government to do their duty and pass a bill that meets those needs. It won't infringe on the rights of any religions - if a church does not want to hold marriage between anything but a man and a woman, they can choose to do that. But some people are trying to claim that shopkeepers do not have to serve people who want their goods for a marriage between, for instance, two men. This, despite the fact that they are not currently allowed to discriminate by refusing to serve people who want their goods for a wild Mardi Gras party. So that's a whole new fight. But I shall keep on.
But tonight I spent some time doing something that I desperately hope will not be a waste of time. Years ago, a citizens' lobby group explained that every letter that gets sent to a politician represents the views not only of that one person, but a thousand people who thought about the issue, thought they should do something, but hadn't quite got around to sending a letter. So each letter can strike fear into the hearts of politicians.
So I wrote to Peter Dutton, the Minister for Being Mean to Refugees.
I do hope it strikes fear into him.
(1) Marriage Equality. Not just Same Sex Marriage, but Marriage that encompasses any two adults who are otherwise free to marry. Any gender (of which there are many), any sex (including Intersex), and staying valid even if they change their gender (unlike currently, where their marriage will be annulled as soon as they do).
(2) The refugees risked death and horrible attacks and all sorts of hardships to come here because their own countries were too dangerous to stay in. Instead of welcoming them, the Australian Government put them in prison camps in other countries. Nearly all of the people turn out to be (don't be too surprised) genuine refugees. The Prime Minister even admitted to Donald Trump that he was only having the asylum seekers who come by boat put on the islands - those that come by plane were allowed in. Now the Government is trying to close the camps, and make the refugees go into communities that do not want them, that attack them, that treat them terribly. So the refugees are refusing to leave the camps. The water was turned off, the shelters pulled down, any shelter or wells the refugees have built get destroyed, there's no food ... you get the idea. We have room here. We have communities ready and willing to take them in. It's only 600 people. They should come here and stay.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-20 05:24 pm (UTC)He died a week after we got back from the honeymoon. At the time, she was living in New Mexico and I was still living in Phoenix, finishing up a contract. She had to fly through Phoenix to get to Ohio, I told her to buy me a round-trip Phoenix/Ohio. Initially she said no, but I knew she had never attended a funeral before -- her parents came from Scotland in the '50s, so almost all her relatives were over there -- and there was no way I was going to let her attend her father's funeral, her first funeral, alone. So I met her at the airport, and we asked at the gate if they could do anything so that we could sit together, and they were able to do some seat swaps and made it happen.
Afterwards my wife started speculating if they would have done that for a gay couple under similar circumstances.
It's ridiculous how people treat 'others'. My oldest niece came out, announced she had a girlfriend, and that they were getting married. My brother announced that he wanted to punch her, my niece, in the face. 'Well, if she wants to be the man in a relationship, she ought to be able to take a punch!' What he and my parents don't know is that my youngest niece also has a girlfriend that she took to prom. I don't know that they know how many of my friends are bi or flat-out gay, not to mention a few trans.
They just don't understand genetics that there's not just two combinations of X and Y chromosomes, or that the world is not 50/50 when it comes to this issue. It's not how people are built. Fortunately my brother has no children, so at least his idiocy ends with him while my sister's progressiveness goes on at least one more generation.