Marriage equality debate - The plebiscite is on its way. (Cont in Pt 3)

Status
Not open for further replies.

Gough

Moderator
Joined
Sep 29, 2006
Posts
40,714
Likes
66,499
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Moderator #4,926
To be fair you have to sex up your campaign a bit when the other side can run something as simple as vote yes and nothing will happen.
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

Underarm

Norm Smith Medallist
Joined
Feb 13, 2011
Posts
7,403
Likes
7,488
AFL Club
Richmond
But in saying it was only 20, the study shows more research needs to be conducted to get a better picture of how children are affected in same sex family's. Simply put; more data needs to be gathered.

Conclusion of the study:


https://www.hindawi.com/journals/drt/2016/2410392/

Key points in bold, do not dismiss the data out of hand, but also don't be a knob jockey and start making posters demonising same sex couples with children on the back of a study using only 20 family's with same sex parents.
Without reading too far into that page, there must be some key factors they are misrepresenting, and the margin for error would be pretty huge. If 19/20 kids with same sex parenting really were being abused then it actually would be a thing. If kids were 3 times more likely to be obese with same sex parents We would know about it and would speak out about it.
 

roscreasl98

Norm Smith Medallist
Joined
Nov 12, 2016
Posts
7,509
Likes
3,477
Location
Over The Hill
AFL Club
Melbourne
Other Teams
All Local Footy
Local councilor posted this and said has been seen in Melbourne and Brisbane. I thought we were told this would be a respectful campaign of opposing viewpoints?

View attachment 406206
Where is the proof that this poster has been displayed anywhere other than in the Star Observor??

Are there any pics from the streets of Brisbane and Melbourne as claimed?
 

Happy Mastenator

Brownlow Medallist
Joined
Apr 16, 2010
Posts
13,977
Likes
15,083
Location
Sydney
AFL Club
West Coast
It's great that the SSM campaigners are highlighting to the whole nation any very localised material that might be hurtful to the vulnerable people who otherwise might have missed it.
You prefer the head in sand approach. These people should be called out and shamed. I hope they find those who handed these out and prosecute.
 

sorted

Premiership Player
Joined
Aug 21, 2016
Posts
4,987
Likes
6,305
AFL Club
Geelong
You prefer the head in sand approach. These people should be called out and shamed. I hope they find those who handed these out and prosecute.
If there are a small number of people with hateful views then their influence is very limited. The people broadcasting the material on social media to millions of people are greatly amplifying the effect. It's almost like they've got an agenda!
 

Gough

Moderator
Joined
Sep 29, 2006
Posts
40,714
Likes
66,499
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Moderator #4,935
When Benjamin Law met Margaret Andrews.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2010/11/05/benjamin-law-up-close-and-personal-with-margaret-andrews/
Something strange happened to me the other evening. I’m still not exactly sure why or how it happened — I’m still trying to unravel it all in my brain — but what I can confirm is Shadow Minister for Family Services Kevin Andrews doesn’t like me, and that his wife Margaret Andrews — a traditional marriage and pro-life advocate — likes me even less. To be precise, she thinks I’m “disgusting”.

She told me this to my face, along with many other things, which I’ve recorded in loving detail below. Margaret, I’m not sure where we went wrong. For the record, I wish we could have been friends.

For the past couple of days, I’d been a guest at the national conference of FRSA (Family Relationships Services Australia), an annual event that connects various family, law and community support organisations from across the country. It took place at Melbourne’s Sebel Citigate Hotel — an efficient, business-friendly conference hub overlooking Albert Park — and the theme was “Diversity: Everyone Benefits”.

Waleed Aly was there and so was High Court Justice Michael Kirby, two of my favourite people. Topics ranged from child safety to indigenous community building, addressing domestic violence and families with same-s-x parents. It was a great conference, bringing together people who work in tough, difficult jobs such as family mediation and conflict resolution.

I’d been invited because FRSA had asked me to give a 15-minute speech at its formal dinner at the National Gallery of Victoria. It was one of those suit-and-gown events that cost a packet of dough to attend, the sort of social environment usually foreign to a writer such as me, who works out of his bedroom in his underwear. But because the theme was diversity, they’d approached me — a young, Asian homosexual, within easy, convenient reach — and scored several minority groups in one. As I later wisecracked in my speech, I hoped I represented good value.

At the pre-dinner reception, a children’s choir sang Waltzing Matilda and hors d’oeuvres were brought around in trays and ceramic boats. The conference had managed to book speakers from across federal political lines, including Labor’s Jenny Macklin, Greens Senator Rachel Siewert and the Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services Kevin Andrews.

As I drank a beer with FRSA’s conference organisers, I spotted Kevin Andrews on the other side of the gallery, sipping a drink and watching the choir with his usual, waxen-faced stare. (Yes: he looks like that in real life.) Through his work on the Coalition frontbench, Kevin Andrews was already familiar to me: you might remember his stint as a late Howard-era Immigration Minister, especially for his infamously grim comments about African migrants being unable to assimilate into Australian society. You might also remember how he cancelled Mohamed Haneef’s Australian work visa. That’s the guy.

When I saw Kevin Andrews, I felt ill. Not just because it was Kevin Andrews, as such, but because my speech — which was on the conference’s theme of diverse families — partly railed against Andrews’ brand of conservative family politics. (Andrews and his wife are devout Catholics.) Because an organiser had told me there would be 410 people in the audience, I was already nervous, and really would have been a mess if it weren’t for the combination of beer, champagne, wine and bovine-grade codeine my doctor had prescribed for a rattling cough I’d recently picked up. Still, I mentally scanned my speech furiously, trying to find any traces of anything too incendiary. I decided it was OK and went ahead.

At the lectern, I talked about my upbringing in my own family. My parents separated when I was 12, and I talked about how, for most of my teen years, I was pretty mortified by my family and our situation, which didn’t exactly fit the “norm”. But I also suggested to the audience that it was stupid for us to be ashamed of our families for this reason, since the “norm” was changing anyway. Marriage rates, I pointed out, were the lowest in Australian history. Divorce rates were up, but so too were cohabitation households, step and combined families, childless couples and children raised by same-s-x parents. For instance, one in five adult lesbian couples in Australia is currently raising children. I continued:

No one has exclusive rights over the definition of family […] So it bugs me when politicians and advocacy groups use the term “family values” as shorthand for an incredibly narrow set of political views, and a very particular model of the modern family. By throwing around the term “family values”, they’re implying that people who don’t share their vision don’t also put their Family First.

I know, I know. I’m not exactly a genius when it comes to wordplay. But let’s move on:

Kids do deserve certain things, like being loved, protected and educated. They are entitled to a good diet, occasional junk food, semi-regular tantrums and lots of naps — especially in their teen years. But the structure of a family doesn’t guarantee any these things. The proposition that some families are more capable or equipped to provide those things, by simple virtue of its structure, is weird, and implies that every other family must be a compromise. Kids deserve to be supported in whatever family they belong to, whatever their family looks like. When we lobby for legislation or create community networks to support — or legalise — particular kinds of families, we’re not doing it to socially engineer what families look like. We do it to give these families legal protections and proper support — because these families already exist.

After the speech, I got a massive round of applause. It was a nice surprise. Younger people whooped and older people patted my back and shook my hand. It was very lovely, and I felt relieved and asked for wine and drank the wine and anything else that was available on the table that would go down my throat quickly. There’s nothing quite like the relief that comes with killing off the spectre of public speaking that’s been hanging around you like a noxious cloud for weeks.

As I signed books at the table, people came up and told me about their own families, something I’d encouraged them to do at their dinner tables, rather than talk about their jobs or the weather. These were all excellent, funny people who came from all sorts of social backgrounds, and had mind-boggling combinations of family members. They talked about their families with a wry, ironic sense of love, detailing their children’s bad behaviour with affection, and describing their own parenting faults by taking the piss out of themselves. These were my kind of people.

Then a woman approached the table. She was a handsome, medium-sized lady in her 50s, with short, cropped sandy hair, styled in soft spikes, and wore a sand-coloured outfit in the professional cut of a Hillary Rodham Clinton number. I didn’t know who she was, so I introduced myself.

“Hello,” I said, extending my hand for a handshake. “Are you after a book for yourself or someone else?”

She bristled. “I’m not here to shake your hand,” she said. “And I’m not here to buy your book. I am here to say something to you.”

Because I’m a bit dim, and because I’m an imbecile, I took this as a gesture of warmth and friendliness. This woman didn’t have money to buy my book, but she wanted to talk to me anyway! How lovely! How sweet. And as for not shaking my hand? Perhaps she had some sort of infectious disease, and had the courtesy of not wanting to pass it onto me. The warning bells hadn’t yet sounded.

“Oh great,” I said. “What’s your name?”

She glared at me, ignoring my question.

“I’ve been married for 30 years,” she said, slowly and purposefully.

“Congratulations!” I said. “Thirty years? No way. Were you married when you were born?”

People around me chuckled and rolled their eyes. (“Turning on the charm,” someone muttered.) To her credit, the woman wasn’t buying it.

“I’m a mother of five children –”

“Oh,” I said. “My mother has five children as well. And I know that any mother raising five kids is doing an amazing job.”

“Are you even going to let me talk?” she said, leaning into me. “Or do you just want to talk at me?”

I was startled. “Oh, please,” I said. “Go on.”

“I wanted to say, that I would be ashamed of you if I were your mother,” she said. “Making a fool of me in front of people like that. And I hope you’re happy; I hope you’re pleased with yourself, sitting here selling books and making profits from your family. It’s disgusting!”

At that point, I realised this would be a long conversation. People in the queue looked at each other silently, giving each other loaded, wary looks.

“Hang on –”

“And I think,” she continued, “that what you said in your speech about families — about families like mine — were disgusting too.” (She liked the word disgusting) “And if I were your family — ”

“Well, you’re not in my family,” I managed to say, “You don’t know me, you don’t know my mother and you’ve never met my family. And: you haven’t read my book. My mother is quite happy of how she’s portrayed in the book and, in fact, accompanied me for some of my book promotion. She’s proud of me, she’s proud of the book and she’s proud of herself. So I think you’re being a little presumptuous.”

“You stand there,” she said, “attacking families like mine!”

Clearly, there had been a misunderstanding.

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” I said. “I wasn’t attacking families like yours at all. I said that white, heterosexual, cereal packet families are seen in broadcast and advertising media all the time. And that many families here tonight — like yours — are exactly like that. But I also added that many other families — like mine — are not like that. But that we’re all still legitimate.”

People in the queue seemed entertained by this stage, and I felt we were both offering them a decent show. But inside, I was struggling. I’m not really good with conflict most of the time, and usually I can talk diplomatically to someone before I spontaneously combust without warning and start swearing at them using the “C” word. I really hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but I’ve learned that I can’t really trust myself, and I felt this was quickly getting out of hand.

It was also immature and embarrassing. It felt like the kind of fight you’d have in the schoolyard; the only difference was that we were better dressed. I wanted to wrap it up.

“What’s your name?” I asked. “And what organisation are you here with?”

“I’m not telling you my name,” she said. She continued to talk forcefully, lecturing me about my attacks on traditional families.

“Look, with all respect, you’re not my mother,” I said. “So I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk to me like you were.”

“But I am a mother!” she said, laughing mockingly at me. “I’m the … I’m the universal mother.”

It was my turn to laugh. “So wait, now you’re like Gaia, the earth mother? I appreciate your comments, but we really should get this line moving. It’s unfair on these people.”

She swivelled around and talked into the queue. “They don’t mind waiting! You don’t mind waiting, do you.”

She didn’t ask it like a question. Put off and intimidated, no one responded.

“Look, I appreciate what you’re saying, but we probably need to keep moving …”

“You don’t appreciate what I’m saying at all!” she said. “You want to end this conversation and get rid of me!”

“Well,” I said, fumbling for the right words, “that makes you a very astute person.”

You get the picture. After a standoff that involved each of us refusing to shake the other’s hands (she refused first; when she huffily extended her hand later, I said I wasn’t touching her), she walked away, furious. I’m ashamed to say that she genuinely rattled me. And even though I was happy that I managed to stay articulate and didn’t become gratuitously mean, my hands were shaking.

It’s hard to sound dignified in situations such as these, and it’s nearly impossible to maintain a steady voice. When she left, the people in the queue laughed and shook their heads, before saying that they really liked my speech and not to worry about her.

When the organisers discovered what had happened, they were furious. They were even more furious when another delegate pointed out to them who it was. “That woman,” they told me, “was Kevin Andrews’ wife.” What could I do but laugh? The whole conference had been about diversity in families, and she felt she’d been attacked? A well-to-do white woman married to one of Canberra’s power brokers? Give me a break.

But it also got me thinking. Earlier in the day, Waleed Aly had discussed concepts of personal identity with the audience, and said that components of how we self-identify come to the fore when we’re vulnerable, or feel we’re being attacked. We emphasise our religion when we feel it’s under threat; I identify strongly as gay and Asian because that’s how I feel most marginalised. Clearly, Margaret Andrews felt that my speech had threatened her too. She was a woman, I sensed, who genuinely felt like her entire identity — as a mother, as a wife — was under attack by people such as me.

I told the crowd that it was OK to come from a broken home. That it was OK to be proud of your family, even if they weren’t exactly 100% functional, and that families that seemed visibly “functional” sort of gave me the creeps and made me wonder what they were hiding. The crowd laughed at that line. And while I could not see them from my lectern, I can guess that Kevin and Margaret Andrews did not.

In the afternoon, Michael Kirby had talked about gay marriage in Australia. He worked the crowd like an evangelist, insisting it was ridiculous that not even same-s-x unions were properly legislated in this country. “Could someone please tell me,” Kirby had pleaded, “how gay marriage threatens or affects anyone else’s marriage? Write to me, email me; I’d love to hear from you.” Similarly, if Margaret Andrews seriously felt like her family was under attack from my speech, I’d like her to write to me and explain exactly how. She can email me at: benjaminlaw@gmail.com.

Perhaps we can talk about how it feels to come from families that are marginalised. Apparently, we have that in common.

I’m all for public debate. I’m all for feisty discussion. But it has to be intelligent and civil, and not involve bizarre, stupid confrontations in the queue for a book signing. Ideally, it shouldn’t involve cheap shots either. (My only regret in this whole encounter was when I tweeted some of the highlights of our argument, and I mentioned that Margaret Andrews had a terrible haircut. I deleted the tweet and offered a retraction. It was an OK haircut. Margaret Andrews is a well-groomed woman.)

I didn’t get to see Margaret Andrews go, but I heard the next day that she’d confronted key organisers during the dinner after our confrontation. Apparently, Margaret Andrews was irate that they’d let someone such as me address the audience. “Is this the type of thing you support?” Andrews had asked. “What would children take away from that man’s message? That you should be proud of your parents, whoever they are? That if you have drug users as parents, that’s OK?” But perhaps Margaret Andrews’ most telling line was this, a little gem that she shot back at someone defending my speech, explaining that my point was that no family is perfect.

“I know every family isn’t perfect!” Andrews said. “I have a cousin who is a lesbian.”

And because I get the sense Margaret Andrews is a woman who likes having the last word in these matters, I might just leave it there.

*Benjamin Law is a freelance writer and author of The Family Law. The full transcript of his speech to FRSA delegates can be found here.

3.22PM Margaret Andrews writes:

Earlier today, I received an email from Crikey informing me that they intended to publish an article by Benjamin Law. The article had not been sent to me, and the deadline for comment had passed by the time I saw the email.

I have now seen the published article.

I did speak to Mr Law after his address.

I simply shared with him a different point of view. We had a civil conversation for a couple of minutes.

I told him that I was speaking personally — not as the representative of anybody else.

For Mr Law to beat up a private conversation with a person who has a different point of view, says more about his attitudes than mine.

It is somewhat ironic that, as a speaker at a conference on “diversity”, Mr Law now engages in personal ridicule.

The article is nothing but a transparent excuse for Mr Law to attack my husband, whom he admits he dislikes, without even speaking to him.
tl,dr. Margaret Andrews accosts Law after a speech he has given, tells him his mother should be ashamed of him, and then plays the victim when called iut. This is the kind of person who will be actively involved in the no campaign.
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

Showbags

Norm Smith Medallist
Joined
Jul 21, 2013
Posts
5,365
Likes
5,528
AFL Club
Brisbane Lions
Other Teams
West Ham Utd
Thread starter #4,942
The silence is deafening...
Wasn't an actual real poster...
What's to bet if something vilifying Christians or conservatives pops its head up during the campaign, without requiring any evidence of its validity you will take it as gospel truth and scream about how the left are intolerant and bigoted.
 

Gough

Moderator
Joined
Sep 29, 2006
Posts
40,714
Likes
66,499
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Moderator #4,943
So that's a NO then...
Thanks.
You can refuse to believe that these have been distributed that's fine, and you're anti ssm that's fine as well. But that's what the face of the campaign you support is going to look like, and once again, if you're cool with that, that's also fine.
 

Maggie5

Spec Moderator
Joined
Apr 3, 2010
Posts
35,163
Likes
31,850
Location
Victoria
AFL Club
Collingwood
Moderator #4,944
Can Sally Rugg, or anyone else identify even one person who actually received this in their letterbox?
Relevance? Can you disprove it?

It's great that the SSM campaigners are highlighting to the whole nation any very localised material that might be hurtful to the vulnerable people who otherwise might have missed it.
Hilarious, got your likes can we move on now?

That localised material is being very well targetted. You should be safe, don't worry.
 

roscreasl98

Norm Smith Medallist
Joined
Nov 12, 2016
Posts
7,509
Likes
3,477
Location
Over The Hill
AFL Club
Melbourne
Other Teams
All Local Footy
What's to bet if something vilifying Christians or conservatives pops its head up during the campaign, without requiring any evidence of its validity you will take it as gospel truth and scream about how the left are intolerant and bigoted.
How wrong are you.

I'm neither religious, nor conservative.

These people making up these fake poster and fliers are actually doing your cause more harm the good, because credibility is an important aspect in any debate...
 

roscreasl98

Norm Smith Medallist
Joined
Nov 12, 2016
Posts
7,509
Likes
3,477
Location
Over The Hill
AFL Club
Melbourne
Other Teams
All Local Footy
Nah, you prove to me that no-one received it.
Your mob posted both the damning posters that allegedly appeared on the streets of Melbourne and Brisbane, and the fliers that allegedly appeared in Hurstville letter boxes.

Yet no-one can proof either actually happened???

As I said, if you or anyone else can prove this actually happened, I won't post in this forum again...
 

Maggie5

Spec Moderator
Joined
Apr 3, 2010
Posts
35,163
Likes
31,850
Location
Victoria
AFL Club
Collingwood
Moderator #4,950
Your mob posted both the damning posters that allegedly appeared on the streets of Melbourne and Brisbane, and the fliers that allegedly appeared in Hurstville letter boxes.
Yet no-one can proof either actually happened???
As I said, if you or anyone else can prove this actually happened, I won't post in this forum again...
And you can't prove that the people and the flyers are fake!
But for one the persons name who has seen it is there and so is the flyer - so you are wrong on two accounts. The only question remains is how many were distributed.
You think you may be clever but this is how it is done.
I hope you keep to the bold.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom