buggery.org

Both The Age and NineMSN are running reader polls on the gay marriage issue. Get out the vote:

• Should same-sex marriages be recognised throughout Australia? (The Age)
• Should gay couples be allowed to marry? (NineMSN)

If you’re still in the votin‘ mood after that, you could follow up with Is the government alienating workers with its new industrial relations laws? on Yahoo!7.

After all the news telling us our relationships aren’t worth a damn, is it any wonder we’re depressed?

(Screenshot from news.google.com.au.)

In an interview with The World Today, constitutional expert George Williams hits the nail on the head:

It all comes down to one word and that is marriage. There is no doubt, I think, that the States and Territories can legislate and Tasmania’s already done this as well, for a form of union between two people of the same sex that is not called marriage.

It’s an interesting argument. Williams says that, as long as they avoid the ‘M’ word, the states and territories can construct a wholly separate, parallel form of civil union which would confer similar or identical rights (under state law) to those conferred by ‘capital-M’ marriage.

Of course, that’s only half the argument – and indeed, it’s the lesser half. Most (all?) states and territories already recognise same-sex relationships to a greater or lesser degree. The most glaring discriminatory statutes which remain are all federal, and there’s no way, constitutionally or politically, the feds are going to make themselves subject to state laws.

Still, if the states do press on with civil unions, it creates a legal anomaly and inconsistency that, presumably, one day a more enlightened federal government would seek to correct.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the federal government has said their concern is that the ACT proposal would enable marriage celebrants – who are licensed by the federal Attorney-General’s Department – to perform civil unions. Jon Stanhope has said today that he will establish a separate licensing process for civil celebrants, although it’s not clear whether the same person will be able to fulfill both roles:

Mr Howard said marriage celebrants, who are licensed by the Commonwealth, would not be allowed to perform civil union ceremonies. [The Age]

So much of the public discourse on this issue strikes me as rich with double meaning and faint hate. It will in time be a striking historical record of the degree of doublethink and thinly-veiled distrust that has so far characterised much of the debate.

Take this excerpt, also from The Age:

Mr Howard said the proposal was “marriage by another name” and he would not allow it.

“We will always seek to remove areas of discrimination against homosexuals but there is a special place in Australian society for the institution of marriage as historically understood and we do not intend to allow that to be in any way undermined,” he said.

It’s an incredibly thin argument, isn’t it? Howard says he’s against discrimination (of course, his government’s record is another thing altogether), but he insists he’s trying to preserve “the institution of marriage” – not by preventing queers from entering relationships which, apart from their same-sex character, are identical to marriage on first principles, nor (at least in theory) from being treated equally before the law, but simply by refusing them access to the ‘M’ word, as if it carries some magical power.

If marriage is just a word, then why is it so important to ‘protect’ it?

And if Howard really thinks the word is so important, why doesn’t he take the lead and create a separate structure of civil unions for gay men and lesbians (and others who are disinclined towards marriage, as the ACT has proposed)? He can have his shibboleth if it makes him happy – I just want equal rights.

Quentin Crisp once famously observed, “a lifetime of listening to disco music is a high price to pay for one’s sexual preference.” If ever we needed proof of that, it has arrived.

Fresh off the Hollywood milk-it-for-all-its-worth crap production line, you can now buy a collection of “dance remixes” of Gustavo Santaolalla’s Brokeback Mountain theme tune. Truly some of the most god-awful music I’ve ever heard, and a travesty of the first order when one considers the raw material from which it was unwillingly wrought.

Dull, repetitive and clichéd dance beats laid bluntly over a few tortured morsels of Santaolalla’s beautiful, haunting music. Utterly without merit and irredeemably bad.

It just goes to show how cynical, out of touch and creatively destitute the Hollywood suits are that this was even contemplated, much less that it was carried to completion.

As someone says in a customer review on the iTunes music store,

I‘m gay, and this is by far the gayest thing I’ve ever seen. … Did they have to do a super-gay-techno version? Way to make a complete joke of the film.

If I ever find myself on a dance floor where this garbage is played, I will personally garrotte the DJ.

Apparently these diet pill adverts screened in North America around 1982, in happier, simpler times. Another, peanut butter flavoured, version after the jump.

(Via Acid Reflux)

(more…)

This morning’s Age is reporting that the federal Attorney-General, Phillip Ruddock, has warned Jon Stanhope that the federal government will overturn the planned civil union law in the ACT.

The move is reminiscent of the Government’s 1997 disallowance of a Northern Territory law legalising euthanasia.

Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has written to ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope warning him against enacting the ACT Civil Unions Bill as it currently stands.

The bill aims to give same-sex couples equal legal rights with married couples. It expects the bill to be passed in May. But it has caused a furore in Federal Parliament.

In a letter to Mr Stanhope, Mr Ruddock said the Government considered same-sex relationships were matters for the states and territories.

But it opposed “any action which would reduce the status of marriage to that of other relationships, or which would create confusion over the distinction between marriage and same-sex relationships”.

Weirdly, Ruddock’s argument is to do with the use of marriage celebrants to officiate at civil unions, not the civil unions themselves:

The Commonwealth has no problem with state laws giving same sex couples the same legal rights as married couples. But it objects to the use of marriage celebrants — licensed under federal marriage laws — performing civil union ceremonies, which the ACT bill appears to allow for as well as all other provisions that equate civil unions with marriage.

A couple of observations about this (it’s 4 a.m., so excuse me if I’m stating the bleeding obvious in my efavirenz-affected state):

1. Is it just me or does the language in the quoted paragraphs smell just a little bit off? Things like “reduce the status of marriage to that of other relationships” and “confusion over the distinction between marriage and same-sex relationships” strike me as oddly paranoid and more than a little insulting. It seems clear the Ruddock objective is to maintain, at all costs, a hierarchical distinction, and the more he speaks on the subject, the clearer his position becomes. All relationships are equal, but some are more equal than others.

2. The Age describes the move as “reminiscent of the Government’s 1997 disallowance of a Northern Territory law legalising euthanasia.” If that’s the case, I hope Stanhope stands his ground. There was a level of debate and public engagement about euthanasia during the 1997 standoff between Canberra and Darwin which helped to bring that issue to public attention. If discrimination against queer relationships was also given that level of attention, that would most likely be a good thing. And unlike the euthanasia question, most people in Australia are in favour of equal treatment for queers.

So bring it on.

A note for overseas readers: The ACT (Australian Capital Territory), where Canberra is, is not a state but a territory, and while it has its own government its laws can be overridden by the federal parliament at will. In 1997, the federal government used these powers to overturn a law passed in the Northern Territory (where Darwin is) which legalised (briefly) euthanasia.

Same-sex couples in Canberra could be holding ceremonies to have their relationships formally recognised as early as the middle of the year, after the introduction into the ACT Legislative Assembly yesterday of the Civil Unions Bill 2006.

The ACT’s chief minister, Jon Stanhope, said in a press release:

“While the ACT is determined to do what it can to afford equal protection under the law to all people, regardless of their sex or sexual orientation, it must be recognised that without changes federally, this equal treatment will be enjoyed only in relation to Territory laws. My challenge to the Federal Government is to end its discriminatory treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex Australians and amend federal laws so that the relationships of same-sex couples are treated in the same way as relationships of opposite-sex couples.”

Speaking on AM this morning, Stanhope repeated his challenge to the feds to follow his lead:

If our politicians and leaders, not just federally, but around the States are not prepared to stand and say, ‘I stand here and mount this objective justification for discriminating against gay and lesbian people,’ then they really should remove that discrimination.

I cannot find an objective justification for why I, as Chief Minister and leader of the Government in the ACT, should allow to persist discrimination on the statute books against gay and lesbian people. In that sense, the discrimination should be removed.

This is emerging as a powerful example of how far the Liberal Party has gone from its roots. Despite the efforts of a small minority (Warren Entsch being the one who comes to mind), our government is occupied not by liberals but by conservatives.

You can tell the Commonwealth Games are over (at last). The papers are full of stories about crocodile-rustlers, cranky koalas and child-mauling roosters.

Dr Tom Cruise, MD, explains how he treated a stuntman, injured on the set of Days of Thunder, with high-potency vitamins:

it was clear to me that what this man was most in need of was a handful of high-potency vitamins, which I administered with all due haste.

Really? This is an effective treatment for numerous compound fractures?

Well, not on its own, obviously. I had him carried to my trailer and placed in my sauna, where he could sweat out the pain-toxins that were coursing through his bloodstream.

Pain-toxins?

And I’ll tell you, he had a lot of them. I insisted that he not be allowed to leave, or he would’ve never gotten them all out. I was holed up with this sweaty, moaning stuntman in my trailer for somewhere over a week, giving him enemas several times a day, before I let the crew in to see how well he had recovered. It was really amazing.

From Tom Cruise’s Medical Forum.

Ethel Yarwood made this.