Bold posters and stickers promoting Sydney’s next Marriage Equality Rally are being seen all over the city’s CBD, and are creating rifts between the various LGBTI community groups who most vocally support the cause.
Shown above, they’re not only a call for equal marriage rights – they’re also a crude and rude “eff you!” message to our new Prime Minister.
Bryn Hutchinson used to help organise the rallies as part of the Community Activists Against Homophobia (CAAH) group, and on Friday he was the first to speak out with his concerns over the new poster.
An open letter to Community Activists Against Homophobia
Now, in an open letter to the rally’s organisers, Australian Marriage Equality’s National Director Rodney Croome takes the unprecedented step of publicly criticising CAAH’s anti-government activity.
Wherever marriage equality has been achieved it has been by beginning conversations, not shutting them down, by building bridges, not throwing up barriers.
That is why it is so disappointing and frustrating to see you have issued a poster for your next marriage equality rally which abuses Prime Minister, Tony Abbott.
It is a double standard to attack Mr Abbott in a way his predecessor, Julia Gillard, was not. This tars the marriage equality movement with the brush of partisanship.
It is also a double standard to demand respect for same-sex relationships without showing the same respect in return, including to those who are oppose legal equality.
The attack on Mr Abbott fails to give him credit for the steps he has taken on the issue.
While he continues to oppose marriage equality, he has acknowledged that supporters of reform are genuine in our conviction.
“How can we expect Mr Abbott’s Liberal Party colleagues to evolve on marriage equality when his engagement with the issue is met with abuse?”
That sends an important message to those opponents of marriage equality who seek to portray supporters of reform as disingenuously engaged in some fictive culture war to destroy marriage and the family.
On the basis of his insight that marriage equality is an issue sincerely proposed, the Prime Minister has provided a path forward for the issue, including a party room debate on a conscience vote.
How can we expect Mr Abbott’s Liberal Party colleagues to evolve on marriage equality when his engagement with the issue is met with abuse?
How can we expect to secure the twenty five or so more supporters we need in the House of Representatives if marriage equality advocates demonise and frighten off politicians rather than win over their hearts and minds?
How can we expect Australia to take marriage equality seriously when some proponents of reform base their case on insults rather than reason?
How can we hold out hope for a better future to young same-sex attracted Australians when the message they hear is one of denigration not inspiration?
Ultimately, the people hurt most by your actions are those tens of thousands of Australians from all walks of life who have worked so hard for so long to achieve a reform so dear.
They have talked to friends who didn’t always care to listen. They have written to MPs who didn’t always care to respond. They have rallied when their nation seemed not to notice. And they did this because of their unshakable belief fairness will win out.
Your poster is an affront to their efforts, their sacrifices and their optimism.
Marriage equality is about love not hate, people not politics. It is about fairness and family – values we all share – and is not a creature of the left or the right.
If you are angry at Tony Abbott’s other policies, the election result, or the Australian people, stop using marriage equality as a stage to play that out.
If you are genuinely committed to marriage equality, withdraw your poster, and repudiate those narrow paths paved with anger and fear that lead only away from reform.
If you continue along the course you’re on now we will no longer be able to promote, speak at or support your activities.
The movement for marriage equality must be broad enough to embrace all those Australians who support the reform, whatever their origin, sexuality, faith or political outlook.
But it cannot be so broad that it permits hatred and abuse to go unchallenged.
Author: Rodney Croome
publication: samesame
date: 15 September 2013
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