The Biggest Bastards in the Bastardry Competition

Dear Major Australian Political Parties,

Refugees are real human beings fleeing awful and terrifying things. You seem to have mistaken them for child molesters, people who don’t turn their phones off during live performances, and Nickelback fans.

It is not okay to threaten/promise that, if elected, you will ensure people who are desperate enough to risk their lives to escape persecution, will be, variously, shipped off to developing nations which have their own issues, towed back out to sea to drown, or denied access to the protection of the legal system against wrongly decided administrative decisions (because “too many” people are being found to be genuine refugees). It’s not okay to bung them on Temporary Protection Visas, force them onto work for the dole schemes, and put more families onto unseaworthy boats because family reunification is impossible under legitimate means.

It’s not okay because we as a nation agreed to obligations under the UN Convention on Refugees to not be a douchebag of a global citizen, and it’s not okay because it goes far beyond what should decently be done in the names of an Australian public that can be better than this - that can be generous and kind to those in need, that believes in at least the rhetoric of a fair go.

If the best way to judge a society is by how it treats the least amongst it - how it treats the poor, the frightened, the huddled masses - then the politics played with refugees in the belief that it will score votes is an indictment on us all.

After all, if you wouldn’t do it to a Nickelback fan, why should you do it to a member of an ethnic minority, or a child whose parents risked everything to send them somewhere they would be able to grow up safe?

Enough racing to the bottom. No party that is determined to sell itself as being biggest bastards in the bastard competition when it comes to kicking some of the most vulnerable and defenseless people in the world deserves to win government and lead this country.
 
Yours sincerely,
CisforCurmudgeon

Australia Has A Lot of Gay Friends, But...

Dear Local Australian MP,

In the world in which we live, the phrase "I have a lot of gay friends" is almost always a signpost for some form of bigotry. It usually prefaces words like 'but' or 'and', as though the speaker is keen to clarify that while they personally know plenty of gay people, they don't see a need for the political progress that is necessary to ensure that the LGBTIQ members of our community feel the full benefits of community membership and equal rights with their neighbours and friends. It is a peculiar and condescending kind of friendship that sees our friends treated with less respect and as lesser citizens purely because of the people that they love.

My friend Hannah spends long days working with Amnesty International, fighting for the political freedoms of people she will never meet. The Australian government won't let her marry her girlfriend, as though somehow their love is worth less than the love of any heterosexual couple, as though it is less considered, less passionate, less true.

My friend Victoria's parents nearly disowned her when she discovered she was in love with a woman. She faced harassment and bullying at school, a hostile home environment, and a government which sees a lesser recognition of the relationship she has suffered so much to realise and protect as unproblematic. She has always been a very traditional, family-oriented person, and marriage has always been important to her - her realisation that she would never be able to pledge her love and commitment to someone, exchanging rings and vows before trusted friends and family, was something that struck at the very core of her identity. I can't help but think that the hateful things she has heard were somehow made stronger because by not legalising gay marriage, the Australian government implicitly endorses the homophobic sentiments and attacks she has faced.

Another friend lives a life of quiet desperation, scared to acknowledge his longterm roommate as his life partner because he believes the most important relationship in his life is stigmatised in our community. He is a bright, senior and respected man who contributes a great deal to Canberra's community, and he feels that if people knew he was gay he would be respected less. Our Australia hurts him, too, because our government continues to signal to the him, and to our community at large, that there is something wrong with homosexual relationships, that there is something okay about treating the love between two men as somehow lesser. Our governments at territory and federal levels say "We have a lot of gay friends, but"; what we hear is that some loves are more equal than others.

So many Australians have similar stories. So many of us have brothers, sisters, family, colleagues, neighbours, friends - who are injured by the refusal of our politicians to take this necessary step - the simple recognition of gay marriage - to remove another bastion of inequality, another arbitrary barrier that serves only to harm. It is a move that costs so little, but means so much to so many.

Although I am not gay, I have a lot of gay, lesbian and queer friends, colleagues, neighbours. We share classes at university, cubicles at work, smiles on the bus in the morning on the way down Northbourne Avenue. We share a common humanity, we share dreams and aspirations for our own futures, and for an Australia which is fairer and more inclusive - an Australia which says that any dreams I may have of one day meeting someone I may want to marry are no more valid than similar dreams of my gay and lesbian friends.

I have a lot of gay friends, Mr. Local MP, and I'm tired of hearing my political representatives tell me that they personally support marriage equality, 'but...'. This is 2011. It is past time we stop making excuses for not helping our friends, for not protecting the members of our community. It is time our government stops quietly offering legitimacy to the sentiments of homophobes and bigots, and openly recognises that preserving marriage exclusively for heterosexual couples is the denial of a basic freedom which should be open to all Australians. Denying the LGBTIQ identifying people in our community any privilege otherwise open to heterosexual couples is discriminatory policy which belongs to an uglier era.

I trust that you will take these sentiments on board, and look forward to a more inclusive Australia.

Yours sincerely,

Canberran Curmudgeon

[This first appeared on the Letter Amnesty blog, where there are more brilliant, eloquent, poignant and strongly persuasive letters to MPs. It's a good place to start if you're inspired to write to your local representative to tell them how you feel about marriage equality.]