From Rex Wockner's 'Quote Unquote"

"A portion of the gay population -- maybe 20 percent, [gay author and
historian Charles] Kaiser estimates -- conducts itself in ways that are
not only reckless but just plain disgusting. Unprotected, promiscuous
sex in bathhouses and at parties and using drugs such as crystal meth to
prolong both desire and performance are practices that should be no more
acceptable for gays than for heterosexuals. Gays don't get some sort of
pass just because they're gay."

--Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, Feb. 17.

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"A straight man knows that if he knocks a woman up, he's on the hook for
child-support payments for 18 years. [I propose that if you] infect
someone with HIV out of malice or negligence ... the state [should] come
after you for half the cost of the meds the person you infected is going
to need. (The man you infected is 50 percent responsible for his own
infection.) Once a few dozen men in New York City, San Francisco,
Toronto, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and Vancouver are having their
wages docked for drug-support payments, other gay men will be a lot more
careful about not spreading HIV. Trojan won't be able to make condoms
fast enough."

--Syndicated gay columnist Dan Savage, Feb. 24.

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"We worry about homophobia, but what is more homophobic than for one gay
man to intentionally expose another gay man to HIV? ... This new and
deadly strain of HIV is not as lethal as our own amoral behavior. The
mortal danger to the gay community is not from a new bug or from an
intrusive government or from a frightened public, it is from our own
selfishness, arrogance and indifference."

--Former Philadelphia AIDS Task Force counselor Harry E. Adamson writing
in the Philadelphia Daily News, Feb. 28.

Fox News - The Unbiased Medium

Fox News hosts muse about gay rights

The Big Story host John Gibson in his March 16 "My Word":

Gays can't have kids -- other than going to the abandoned kids store and getting one or two, or borrowing sperm from someone with more sperm than brains -- so by definition they're out of the marriage game.

Sean Hannity on the March 16 edition of Hannity & Colmes:

BOB BECKEL (guest co-host): Let me just say one thing about the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts, when they allow gay Boy Scouts in the Boy Scouts, then that won't be a problem for me. But they don't.

HANNITY: But they can have the Gay Scouts if they want, if they don't like the values of the Boy Scouts.

Bill O'Reilly on the March 15 edition of Westwood One's The Radio Factor:

O'REILLY: You know, the Founding Fathers didn't write anything into the Constitution about gay marriage. Because back then, if you were gay, they hung you.
So -- you couldn't get married 'cause they put you in the rack. You know, if you were runnin' around wearing a chartreuse hat, you were in lots of trouble. So, we didn't even have to worry about these people gettin' married because if they come out of their closet in the log cabin -- somebody'll shoot them in the head. So, there really wasn't an issue back in the Founding Fathers.

The Stereotype is TRUE

The Singapore sgboy website has published A gay man's reaction to The Nation party , which strikes not a few raw nerves on the idiocy that passes for gay culture nowadays. Well what can I say! Read and learn.

We have indeed been consumed by the consumerist culture, haven't we?

I recall some years ago, working on HIM magazine in London, when the editor went to New York for a while and came back full of plans to publish lots of stories about party drugs, buffing up at the gym, and all the shit we now take for granted as part of 'the gay lifestyle'.

Well actually, folks, it ain't: it's the American gay lifestyle, invented in New York back in the 1970's and 1980's, and exported to the world courtesy of guys like my editor. He entitled his first series on gym-culture - Fit For Sex.

Dickburger Restaurants

Since then, every gay bar in the world has come to look like every other. Every dance party is the same. All the guys are the same. Instead of a burger chain, gay venues are now a series of near-identical dickburger joints

You can travel the world and everything feels just like the same, like you never left. In the days when I spent time in the US and Europe, I remember one evening in a gay bar in Boston Massachusetts. I'd had a few drinks, chatted to a few guys, but decided to head on home. There was a depressing sameness, been-there-done-that feel about it all, topped off by some guy who just walked up to me out of the gloom and opened the conversation with "come out back with me and I'll blow you," and then got really aggressive when I politely declined.

As I headed for the exit, I experienced a strange moment of dislocation, a variation on deja vu. I was not sure what city I would find on the other side of the door. Would it be London? New York? Amsterdam? Paris? Sydney? Did it matter?

It's only a cartoon, stupid

Inside, every place, every guy, is a clone of someone else, someone who never really existed except perhaps in a Tom of Finland cartoon.

Perhaps you think I exaggerate the influence of cartoons - not just Tof, but kids cartoons like He-Man, for example? There's one bodybuilder on gay.com and gaydar who doesn't have a pic on his profiles, just a cartoon of an impossibly musclebound lunkhead almost crushed by the gigantic barbell he's trying to lift, as an icon of what this poor deluded man is working to be. He hasn't figured out that the cartoon is a joke, an exaggeration. He's taken it as a straightforward illustration.

Lots of not-very-bright guys seem to have had the same moment of fake revelation: "Hey, if I inject a few steroids, spend a few mindnumbing hours a day in a gym, I can look like a cartoon, and everyone will want to fuck with me."

Often the very same dumbos think sexual reality means hey have to fuck like in the porno movies: so they use crystal, viagra, bum-numbing herbal gel, ecstasy, whatever, to render THAT fantasy into a semblance of reality.

The literal-mindedness of some people is astonishing.

This cartoon juggernaut of fake manufactured masculinity and sexuality has steamrollered almost all trace of any real gay culture into the dirt. Talk about society, marriage, children, the future, creasting a gay heritage? No time for that mate, working too hard getting buff and getting fucked.

Senator Kay Patterson

I have just received a response to my letter to the above Minister, which I wrote before the government passed it's ban on gay marriage. Despite the fact that faxes from this person spew out of the machine at the station several times most days (this woman's responsible for the pulping of countless trees!) she couldn't get round to responding till now, it seems.

Her letter - I won't bore you with it - is virtually a carbon copy of what many of you will have received on this topic from other government mionisters and MPs, and merely reiterates the governments actions and views, without in any way attempting to address the real issues involved. So I won't bore you with it.

But I will share my reply.


Yr ref: KP:br 01.05

Dear Senator Patterson,

Thank you for your (extremely belated) response to my correspondence on the subject of same sex marriage. I would like to point out a few things.

Firstly, the issue is not one of marriage, per se. The issue is equality and fairness, marriage merely the means.

I have been in a monogamous relationship with my partner for over twelve years now, which I think is fair to say is better than many heterosexuals – and even more politicians! – seem to be able to manage.

Yet our relationship is not recognised as having the same value or status as one of those common casual and temporary unions, merely because we are of the same gender. In order to achieve near-parity of recognition, we are forced to jump through a number of difficult and expensive legal hoops, none of which would be necessary if we could simply have our union recognised as having equal status and value to your own.

The simplest and most straightforward way to achieve this is marriage, with identical rights, privileges and responsibilities. This would send a clear message that we are equal citizens in this country.

I recognise that a lengthy period of ‘civil unions’ of steadily increasing scope would be necessary on the road to this, as has been embarked upon by many European countries, in order to accustom the generality of the population to the fact that we are, in fact, not really any different to anyone else.

The responsible course for any politician of any party is to lay out such a road map, complete with timelines and milestones, to redress the current inequality. This is something called ‘leadership’, in contrast to the servile and cynical pandering to a mob of hysterical self-styled “Christians”, in which your party has indulged itself.

Secondly, very onerous responsibilities are laid upon those who enter parliament and especially upon those who take ministerial responsibilities. Once you are in that position, you have a legal and moral duty to use your powers for the benefit of all Australians, and not just those who belong to your party, or vote for you. This is especially true in regard to minorities, for if this principle is not strictly adhered to, the rights of minorities can be trampled by the tyranny of the majority, as has happened in this instance.

Under normal circumstances ministers of low integrity avoid the odium of acting on behalf of minorities that their supporters dislike, by leaving open avenues of appeal to the courts. Indeed, the courts are the major bulwarks against this kind of abuse of majority power.

In this instance, not only did your government abuse it’s powers in legally enshrining second-class status for a significant minority of your citizens, but also acted in such a way as to bar all avenues of redress via the courts. This is dictatorial, not democratic behaviour, and you should be ashamed of having participated in it.

Thirdly, not only did you consign the said minority of your own citizens to second-class status, but you also abrogated to yourself the right to demote overseas citizens visiting or residing here, who are legally married in their own countries, to that same second-class status, along with their children, which clearly over-reaches your jurisdiction, and is an interference in the domestic affairs of other sovereign states. This is arrogance of a high order.

Your dry recital of the legal niceties involved in this insult does not even begin to address the issues involved, and contributes nothing to remedying the current situation.

Yours,



Doug Pollard

So-called "Christian" love

This piece may be about America, but the authors 'righteous anger' is something we could do with more of here in Oz - his responses have universal application. And you don't have to be Christian, or even religious, to appreciate the truth of Archbishop Bruce J. Simpson's take on recent evil court decisions resurrecting the 'gay panic' defence, along with others which set the value of a gay life at less than anyone elses. It all smacks of 'Jim Crow' for me - it's OK to murder a queer because they ain't worth as much as a straight white boy. And what are we doing about it? Hiding our heads in the sand.

Bland Ambition

Congratulations to The Australian for picking up this stunner of an article on the soppy, soggy girly versions of Greek heroes that Hollywood is churning out - and kudos to Mark Simpson for writing it. I was woo-hooing and leaping out of my chair, despite the miseries of a kidney stone.

If I may quote:

"The ancient world was a time when men were men - and the boys were nervous."

"Alexander, by the way, was not 'bisexual' in the way the publicity for the movie has carefully suggested. He was only 'bisexual' in the way that Elton John was 'bisexual' in the 70's."

"Macedonia - even by Greek Standards - was a giant, jumping, open-all-hours ancient leather bar. In fact, the ancient Greeks were scandalised by the 'barbaric' and 'beastly' behaviour of the Macedonians . . . . actually Macedonia was the kind of place that would terrify most of today's leather queens. . . the pre-Christian barracks erotica of Macedonia ultimately defeats Stone precisely because it is too masculine, too pagan. Stone is a liberal Judaeo-Christian pussy."

And much much more. Do have a read, it's a breath of fresh air.

WHERE THEY STAND

Following Larry Kramer's attack on the US Human Rights Commission, and the suggestion that they might work with the Bush administration , supporting the privatisation of social security in return for the recognition of inclusion of gay and lesbian couples, the National Gay & Lesbian Taskforce responded with an open letter in the press. HRC declined to sign.

WHERE THEY STAND

What better statement can you have of our rights? Wise words for our own times and country, too . . . .

"although the struggle for freedom can be difficult and painful for those without full equality, it would be an historic mistake to grow tired of the battle or surrender basic rights and equality in order to make the road easier."

"We will not sacrifice our rights—or the rights of others like senior citizens on the altar of political expediency. Most of us, if confronted with that choice, would not even know where to begin. Which right would we give up?

The right to adopt children? The right to serve our country proudly and with honor? The right to be at our partner’s bedside in death? . . . . "

"Nothing short of full equality and protection granted to all other American citizens is acceptable."

Couldn't have put it better myself.

So I won't.

The Village Voice: Nation: 'You Can Never Not Fight Back!' by Alisa Solomon

The Village Voice: Nation: 'You Can Never Not Fight Back!' by Alisa Solomon

Good old Larry Kramer - what a wonderful parcel of advice for all those arse-kissers who think we should be cosying up to the Howard government because they might be what we have to work with for the next six years.

His advice to US lobbyists is equally true for Aussie ones: their job is not to ask, beg, or request, it is to demand, and who cares if they don't like it? What worse can they do that what they're already doing?

Time to get nasty

Now that I’ve finished my on-air duties for the week, I wanted to have a rant about the despicable craven piece of advice masquerading as 'being realistic' in MCV last week, on how to deal with the Howard government.

In essence it said that the gay community had to pick some new leaders willing to engage with ministers and bureaucrats, not activists who want said ministers etc. thrown out, and who embarrass them in public by holding nasty things like demonstrations, mouthing off about their homophobia etc. etc. We have to accept we can only work for little changes, give up on our dreams, accept whatever crumbs they condescend to drop.

Well, as my good mate Kaye Sera would say, “Pardon Me, Mary!”

You can dress up in your Armani suits, pack your shiny black leather briefcases with glossy position papers, and make all the smooth and soothing noises you like: the minute we hit Canberra it’ll be “Down on your knees boy, and give me tongue.” And then they’ll walk away with a grin, having given nothing in return, except a bad taste in our mouths.

This government isn’t interested in us. Never mind gay marriage – it won’t even fund AIDS tests. The Minister for Health said on World Aids Day – if I may paraphrase, “It’s your own stupid fault, just stop fucking each other and it’ll go away.” We can bow and scrape all we like, the message is clear – fuck off and die, faggots.

Instead of sitting around wondering how best to grovel, we should take a leaf out of America’s book. Yes, I know all the gay marriage constitutional bans got up. Yes, I know George Bush got elected. And I can hear from here the cries of “cultural cringe” and “ Australia’s not America”. No, it bloody isn’t, more's the pity. Do you see the Yanks sitting around whining about how to make people like them? Trying to work out the most appealing way to crawl to their enemies?

No – they conduct earnest symposia, such as the recent one for young activists, studying the strategy and tactics of the Christian groups that defeated us and said, OK, the God Squad were very successful. Let’s learn from that – borrow some of the same tactics for our side.

Did couples wanting to marry in Oregon, New York, California etc. etc. cry into their beers saying, “It’s no good, they’ll never give it to us, boo hoo.” ? Maybe for about five minutes – then they were back in the press, on TV, in the courts, battling on.

Did the HRC stick with the strategy their chair had fashioned? No, they booted her out and got in some fresh thinkers.

We have to get off our butts and sue, attack, embarrass, upset, out and damage this bunch of smug murderous idiots with all the power at our disposal, not queue up to beg for a job wiping their bums. We don’t have the Democrats – they imploded. We don’t have the Greens – they didn’t get up. We don’t have Labor – they’re in thrall to the Catholics and the Aspirational Assholes. We only have ourselves.

The gloves have to come off.

If there are any closet gay pollies we know of in Canberra who won’t speak up for us, any gay journalist, lawyer, professor who won’t go to bat for us, out them. If media tarts badmouth us, sue their tits off. If lunatic clergymen gut up on their hind legs and call us pagans on a par with wife-stranglers and widow burners, as one opponent of NZ civil unions did, sue them, ridicule them, make their lives hell. Pay them back in their own coin. It’s time to stop being nice: that’s what got us where we are, ignored and left to rot. Now it’s time to get nasty.

It’s déjà vu all over again

Once again I see John Howard but I hear the voice of the Maggatollah Thatcher. Curb the unions! Enforce secret ballots! Weaken or do away with unfair dismissal laws! Ban pattern bargaining! Outlaw the closed shop! Give management the freedom to manage and enterprise will blossom!

Am I missing something here? On the one hand people are complaining – and rightly – that employers are demanding more and more of our (unpaid) time, that work and life are seriously out of balance, that we have no choice but to work till we drop or else, that once you hit 50 no-one will employ you, that none of us will have a decent pension when and if we finally do retire. On the other hand everyone’s lining up to clobber the unions.

Hello, people, reality check time.

It was the unions that put an end to excessive working hours and thus allowed people to have leisure and family time.

It was the unions that made sure that if you had to work more than the basic number of hours in a day, at least you got paid for it.

It was the unions that made it possible for people – except those working in radio and television of course :-) - could go on holiday with some money in their pockets and the guarantee of a job to come back to.

It was the unions that made sure that people couldn’t be dismissed without proper thought or consideration for their futures and their families.

It was the unions that made sure people weren’t thrown on the scrapheap at 50 and left to starve.

The list goes on……..

Listen up people – there is a direct connection between the horrible working conditions you now have to endure to be allowed to earn a crust, and the weakened state of trade unions.

Individuals have no chance against the economic and social power of employers: unions supplied the essential balance that made sure people weren’t just ground up to suit the convenience of business.

Your life is out of balance because the employer-employee relationship is out of balance. And the only way to redress that balance is for employees to be organized in some way, otherwise we just get picked off one by one.

The biggest single domestic social challenge is indeed to reform the unions, not so that they have less power, but so that they can once again become an effective counterbalance – and so we can all get our lives back.