Viewing posts tagged ‘freedom of speech’

June 18

Same sex marriage in western australia

A few events have pushed same sex marriage back onto the public agenda this week. Mainly, the Australian Marriage Equality association releasing survey results stating 60% of Australians favour same sex marriage. According to the survey, Gen Y’ers and Greens voters are most likely to support it… whaddaya know I happen to be both of those things.

Western Australia, always lackluster in progression, has the highest opposition to gay marriage in the country, with 40% either disagreeing or strongly disagreeing. Are we surprised? Tiffany Fox at The West Australian wrote a blog post about it today:

Equal recognition of same-sex relationships is long overdue. It seems crazy that WA allows gay couples to adopt children, but won’t allow them to get married.

I’m not going to go all politico ranty on you all because I’m sure you’re sick of it. Instead, I’m going to share this absolutely fantastic piece of information with you, taken from The West blog comments:

Craig Says:
June 18th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
I wonder how many of these anti-gay folk know that our state’s fauna emblem, the Black Swan, is well known for homosexual activity. It even extends to the point where two males swan form a lifelong pair and rogue females lay eggs in the pair’s nest for the males to raise.

How insulting to the human race that Black Swans are far more advanced in gay surrogacy than us!

The gay agenda Tags: freedom of speech, gay marriage, gay rights, media, politics

May 24

Religion is confusing

Political advertisements in the US are so ridiculous I like to watch them and imagine the type of backlash they’d get if they were played on Australian television. Take for example this pile of garbage from Nation For Marriage:

After watching this video I’m very glad that schools, universities and the internet don’t teach kids new ways of thinking… phft! It only leads to increased confusion when the kids go home and their fundamentalist parents scar them with the death, destruction and incest of The Old Testament. What is more confusing… Two people loving each other and getting married as a symbol of their love, or a virgin giving birth?

These children were only confused after the ranty voiceover started talking, so kids, to clear things up here are the answers you seek:

Boy #1: If grandpa was a girl, he would have gone through a lot of stress following the gender reassignment surgery, please be extra nice to her.
Ranga girl: Hell yes giiiiirrrl! I like your attitude.
Boy #2: What the bible doesn’t say is that Adam actually was ‘Anna’, using a very primitive strap on.
Boy #1 again: If your dad married a man, you wouldn’t exist right now. Try not to think about it too much.
Confused boy: If you feel you are bi-curious, there are many resources available at the Freedom Centre.

The gay agenda Tags: freedom of speech, gay community, gay marriage, gay rights, health, politics, religion, stupid

May 17

гомосексуалиста времени

I thought I would do a Eurovision post because I know of a lot of Eurovision parties happening around Perth tonight. The final was very entertaining: while the musical performances were less camp than last year, I was still glued to my set. I can’t even imagine the amount of money Russia pumped into production - the visual styling and stage design blew my mind.

Unfortunately there’s saddening news: Gay rights protesters who arranged a rally to coincide with the media attention that Eurovision brings were quickly arrested and whisked away by riot police. In fact, they arranged 1000 riot police to break up demonstration. In the mean time an anti-gay protest elsewhere in the city was given a permit to go ahead (although some of these protesters were arrested as well). Stuck in the middle Eurovision had to ignore the entire thing was happening.

But back to the competition: my favourite performances were Greece (super, super gay), Russia (very powerful), Armenia (awesome visuals), Sweden (super freaky opera singer) and Germany (for some reason they were represented by an American gay guy and Dita Von Teese! What!). Not to be forgetting Slovenia putting up a protest during the result announcements! Pure gold.

And my absolute favourite part… the host - what a hottie! If there are any guys in Perth who look like Ivan Urgant please contact me asap. Ahh Ivan… one day you will be mine!

Random Tags: censorship, freedom of speech, gay news, gay rights, music, reviews

May 11

Get yourself a job and a life!

The moment we were all waiting for. How ironic the person who asked the question is part of The Court’s customer base! I kind of get the feeling she knew that, though. I LOVE Bree’s dramatic emphasis on the word ‘life’.

Perthtainment Tags: bars, freedom of speech, nightlife, politics, the court

May 5

lesbians are teaching toddlers how to dooo eeeeeiitt

Well, according to this moronic drivel from News Limited.

A BOOK which teaches children about lesbian mums getting pregnant using sperm donors is being pitched at kids as young as two.

The controversial publication, Where Did I Really Come From?, also features a drawing of two gay men holding a baby in a chapter about surrogacy.

I hate it when gay men hold babies! It’s so unsettling and offensive. And so it sexting! If your teenage daughter sexts some one it is guaranteed she will become a lesbian. Spread the moral outrage people!

News Limited’s office seems to have a dedicated phone line straight through to Family First / Focus On The Family / every religious group’s public relations department, because they publish trash like this every time a family group feels they need to irritate the public. The article calls the item in question a “sex instruction book aimed at toddlers”, which is sensationalism at its best.

“It devalues the traditional family unit and at the very least desensitises us,” Focus On The Family spokeswoman Deb Sorensen said yesterday.

Hate to break your belief system there Deb, but the traditional family unit doesn’t actually exist, and hasn’t for a very long time. The issue here is choice: if you want to show this book to your child (the recommended age on the book is two - twelve) then you do that. If you don’t, you don’t. Just don’t smother your beliefs over everyone else’s face. Your lack of tolerance suffocates us.

If you’re allowed to be producing crap like ‘Preventing Homosexuality’ then us heathens should be able to publish our ‘Where Did I Really Come From?’ book. kthx.

Well, now that I got that little tantrum out of me, there was an interesting news story today about a girl in Melbourne who has been allowed to have his breasts removed because he is more comfortable being a boy. He’s been given the androgynous pseudonym of ‘Alex’ because Alex is still underage.

Without knowing too much about the situation, it does seem the Family Court is doing the right thing for Alex’s welfare. If you’re feeling newsey have a read. The Age can’t seem work out which gender preposition to use - it’s almost like they’ve done it on purpose.

Justice Bryant said having breasts constrained Alex socially. She had to avoid being hugged by friends, could not go to the beach and had to wear binding. “So it was quite an impediment to his social development, which everyone thought was very important.”

The gay agenda Tags: freedom of speech, gay news, gay rights, health, religion, stupid, trans

May 1

Why bar owners don’t work in public relations

I don’t actually spend every moment of my life whinging about The Court. I only do it every second day, or when I’m feeling cranky, or feeling bored. Physically it’s a great venue, and yes it has introduced some good new elements to Perth’s gay bar scene (mainly food related). Although I feel it still hasn’t reached full potential yet you could definitely go a lot worse on a Saturday night - Mustang Bar anyone?

What I frequently don’t agree with though is the venue management’s attitude towards its patrons. I’ve discussed this previously, but apparently we’re not even allowed to talk about it anymore: Bree Maddox (owner of The Court) recently went on a censorship spree and threatened the owners of two Court related Facebook groups, pushing the owners to take the groups down.

One of these groups was set up to discuss the security company employed by The Court, and included valid conversation on how patrons had been treated (according to the group a few incidents have occurred recently). When this Facebook group first started Bree Maddox even contributed, stating she would to look into the situation and enact changes as required. A few weeks later though she’s suddenly changed her mind and is demanding the group be deleted otherwise “further action” will be taken… huh?

The group owner told me:

She [Bree Maddox] asked me to take it down or it would be reported and removed anyway. So after a fairly intense discussion with her I swallowed my pride and removed it myself. They weren’t so much legal threats, but it was implied that further action would be taken if the group wasn’t deleted.

It doesn’t take a degree in Public Relations (which I do have, by the way) to know that if your customers are raising legitimate complaints, you don’t try to censor them. If you attempt to silence people they talk anyway. Word spreads and then some loudmouth puts it on his blog and then even more people know. Scaring your customers with implied threats of legal action or a banning from your venue is a big no no. A discussion group sharing complaints about a product or service is not defamation.

So my question to Bree Maddox is; why are we not allowed to talk about ways to improve The Court? Why are you threatening people who point out areas that need attention to make the venue better?

As a side note, can you also explain why you registered the domain name perthmardigras.com? I’m a tad confused… you didn’t want anything to do with the 2008 Pride Parade, but at the same time you registered a website for your own Perth Mardi Gras?… Just sayin!

Obviously this is quite a controversial topic for little ol’ Perth, and I would like to add a disclaimer that this post is by no means an attack on staff who work at The Court (I know you guys are a pretty tight knit bunch), or any specific security guard. Bree if you would like to respond - please do. I will gladly post your reply here.

Currently the Court related Facebook group I started ages ago has not received any requests to close down. Funny that.

The gay agenda Tags: bars, censorship, freedom of speech, gay community, nightlife, northbridge, the court

April 20

News bites

The St Mary’s Catholic Community in South Brisbane today left their resident church building after being excommunicated by the Brisbane Archbishop. St Mary’s Parish Peter Kennedy was removed from the Roman Catholic Church for “unorthodox” views, namely supporting same sex partnerships and the right for woman to preach. To add salt to the nine inch nail wounds, the Roman Catholic Church said anyone who continues to follow Kennedy will be condemned by the Church.

Gosh, Roman Catholics are just the most delightful and loving bunch of people. The nice part of this story though is St Mary’s continues to push on, finding a new headquarters for its followers just down the road from the church house they were evicted from. You can download and listen to a really interesting segment on Triple J’s Monday Hack program. The story features some of the progressive Catholics in exile who still support St Marys.

Media loudmouth Perez Hilton has gone a bit ape at Miss California after she stumbled through a question about gay marriage during the Miss USA Pageant. As the video above shows she basically doesn’t agree with it. Afterward Perez had a big video blog rant calling the contestant a “dumb bitch”.

This is where things get a bit cloudy: he clarifies she is dumb because she didn’t answer the question politically (ie. sitting on the fence like a good Barbie Doll should do), not because of her actual views. Fair enough, and fair enough that she doesn’t believe in gay marriage. I don’t know if everyone on the extreme left and right wing are going to see it that way though. The righties will use it as a pin up for freedom of speech while the lefties will call foul for public homophobic. Funnily enough, my article in next month’s WAX Magazine looks at this very topic. Way to go, shameless self promotion!

Even if you’re not politically minded have a watch of the video - you can have some real fun pinpointing the exact moment when her Barbie Doll smile starts to crack and she thinks “oh, shiiiit”.

The gay agenda Tags: freedom of speech, gay community, gay marriage, gay news, religion

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