Tim Trainor spends every waking moment finding out what's all the gay rage in Perth right now. Events, culture and random bits and pieces from Perth, Australia.
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Viewing posts tagged ‘gay rights’
July 18
Eye on parenting
Same sex parenting is clearly on the rise in WA, and has today made its way into the pages of the West Australian. New parents Leonie and Marnie Woodley and Josh O’Keefe, along with their son Quinn Silas Woodley-O’Keefe are featured on pages 2 and 23. Josh is the biological father of Quinn, who was created with an egg from Marnie and carried by surrogate Leonie. Josh will stay an active donor as Dad and help raise Quinn with his two mothers.
The feature gives great insight into the hardships, difficult decisions and determination involved same sex parenting; issues often overlooked by those who oppose, and indeed the wider general public. While trying not to drag the four of them into becoming a case study for political debate, the sharing of their journey gives ammunition in dispelling the many myths surrounding same sex parenting.
At first glance, this family flies in the face of many who argue that a child born, or adopted, to gay parents is at a disadvantage because of the lack of a male or female role model. … “We’ll raise our child with open-mindedness and we expect others to do the same and treat his family with the same respect that we expect our son to treat other family units” [said Marnie].
“At the end of the day we love Quinn more than anything,” says Josh. “Quinn is the priority and his wellbeing is number one… what form the family takes is irrelevant.”
All fantastic messages to be promoting. A personal annoyance of mine is the gap in justification between drugged up bogans from Rockingham, Gosnells, wherever, who can end up with an unwanted mistake pregnancy and be able to carry the baby, and committed same sex couples who really are dedicated to the raising of a child, but have to jump through many hoops to do so. Both are extreme ends of the spectrum but the point remains. The West Australian’s feature story also makes a few opposing argument grabs, and you know, I may be a seething atheist, but opposition to this topic always comes from religious family groups. (Keep reading after the cut).
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!
May 25
Two bears from the burbs
Hah, in your face every major religion in Australia. Last night 60 Minutes had a great piece on two Melbourne bears who are the first gay couple in the country to have children via commercial surrogacy. Earlier this month they became fathers to twin girls. It all came at a hefty price; they paid a total of $40,000 for their sperm to be inserted in a donor egg, then implanted into an unrelated woman in India. Surrogacy like this is currently illegal in Australia.
Unfortunately Channel 9 haven’t put the video up, but you can read a transcript of the story on their site. Looking from the most cynical perspective, current affair stories like these are great at helping dispel the myth that same sex couples are too promiscuous and too unstable to care for kids in the long term. You can tell these guys really are committed to their new family. It only reiterates my feelings that if drunk hetero bogans can have a sloppy one nighter, end up with a mistake foetus and carry it to full term all the while feeling it’s a burden, same sex couples who really will care for their kids should have the right to conceive.
Some interesting comments from Gautum Allahbadia, the doctor who oversaw the surrogacy (and also pinged on my gaydar).
I believe every human being has a right to procreate and as long as I’m practising medicine within the purview of Indian law I would offer this service to anybody
Liz Hayes also asked a Muslim woman, who had previously been a surrogate, how she’d feel if her baby went to a gay couple:
I would rather do it for a couple who’s really looking for children
It’s going to take a while to change attitudes like these, in both India and Australia.
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.
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!
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.”
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