The Gay & Lesbian Rights Lobby have issued a call for supporters of queer rights to send email messages to Mark Latham and Nicola Roxon condemning their sell-out on the same-sex marriage inquiry.
This story from the Sydney Star Observer has the details, including a pro-forma email message you can cut and paste. It’s only takes about two minutes.
I’m not generating a lot of words on this site lately, I know. Busy with work, not much to report. Meantime, here’s a photo:
“You are on a video camera an average of ten times a day,” Mr Kenneth Cole thoughtfully informs us. One might wonder whether there’s a political point to be made about this level of universal surveillance, but no. If you’re going to live in George Orwell’s nightmare, you might as well have some nice clothes.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
(Photo from Myer store window, Melbourne.)
Bored with the War on Terrorism? Barely able to remember the War on Drugs*? Well, fear not: here comes the War on Pornography.
* They say if you can remember the War on Drugs, you weren’t really there…
The Gay & Lesbian Rights Lobby, ACON, New Mardi Gras and Sydney Pride Centre have called a COMMUNITY RALLY to demand:
- Equality before the law
- Recognition of our relationships
- Recognition of our families
The rally will be held this Saturday June 26, 2004 at 1.30pm at Sydney Town Hall Square. Come and listen to a few passionate speakers and light entertainment.
Football Fans Against Sexual Assault is a group of grassroots AFL and NRL fans disillusioned by the recent sexual assault allegations within our codes.
FFASA does not accept the club cover-ups, denials, excuses and spin doctoring and have set up a web-site in response to the situation. We recognise that sexual violence against women within the football codes reflects a larger problem within the Australian community.
Online polls relating to the Gay marriage issue:
If any of my readers are shareholders in the New York Times, or if you know someone who’s a shareholder, consider this worthwhile request from AEGiS.org.
AEGiS is a volunteer-run website which makes news articles, conference papers and other items of interest available for people with HIV/AIDS. The person behind this enormously valuable resource is Sr Mary Elizabeth, a transsexual catholic nun and former US serviceman. It’s been running on limited funding for many years — originally as a BBS and later as a web archive.
As well as being very useful for people living with HIV/AIDS, the site is becoming one of the most comprehensive and extensive archives of the HIV epidemic.
Many news organisations have licensed AEGiS to reproduce their content online. One which hasn’t is the New York Times.
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Bush to appear on Arab TV mouthing empty platitudes. Apparently his gang of armed thugs aren’t supposed to shoot innocent Iraqis for sport. No word yet on how this will go down in Fallujah.
Speaking of Fallujah:
FALLUJAH PEACE DEAL
By NILES LATHEMMay 1, 2004 — WASHINGTON – Commanders yesterday announced a breakthrough peace pact in Fallujah that will allow a new Iraqi force commanded by a former general in Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard to take over security in the hotbed city.
The Marine force participating in the month-long siege of Fallujah began withdrawing from some offensive positions in southeastern parts of the city. It was being replaced by members of the newly created Fallujah Protective Army, which took over some checkpoints and raised the new Iraqi flag.
That’s from the New York Post but you can find more or less the same story reproduced faithfully all across the world, or at least the Coalition-of-the-Willing-sympathizing world.
The US Marine Corps is in retreat after failing to take Fallujah despite a week of intense fighting and the deaths of hundreds, perhaps thousands of Iraqis, almost all of whom were innocent bystanders. The US has been defeated at the gates of Fallujah, but you won’t read that in your local paper, either in the US or in Australia.
Funny, that.
Newsweek columnist Gersh Kuntzman, on msnbc.com:
A picture in The New York Times on Sunday did more than just capture the gay marriage debate: In the photo, two newly married lesbian women are kissing while all around them, homophobes, bigots, haters and distorters of Christ’s message of love taunt them with flame-covered signs reading, “Prepare to meet thy God!”
It’s a striking image of love and hate in bloom. And so it’s time to ask a question that has come up from time to time in our nation’s history: Looking at that picture, it’s time to ask yourself, “Which side are you on?”
Kuntzman then quotes extensively from the hate mail he received after a week ago writing a column in support of gay marriage, and includes the writer’s names. It’s sobering stuff.
No single column of mine has ever generated as much hate mail as [last week's column] in support of allowing people who love each other to marry. True, some of the letter writers hoped to engage me in a civil debate. But the majority saw my support for gay civil rights as a good opportunity to unleash wave after wave of hate. Oh, and some hoped that I would die a horrible death.
So, I ask again: Which side are you on?
(The photograph that Kuntzman refers to in the lead par is online at Queer Visions, from whence came this link)
