Comments on: Abbott’s Long Battle Against Gay Rights

By: Robert McCormick

Robert McCormick — Fri, 11 Sep 2020 01:58:25 +0000

Did you really have to publish that ghastly picture of this homophobic, misogynist?
Maybe he will now stay in his homeland, renounce his Australian Citizenship, regain that of the UK and hope for a Knighthood or Peerage then he can dream he is the equal of Betty’s lap-dog Philip.

By: Tony Rogers

Tony Rogers — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 03:05:22 +0000

Joseph Carmel Chetcuti… I was around in the 1970s. I wanted marriage. I am not a gay conservative (inverted commas or not).
I have never seen marriage as essentially a ‘patriarchal institution’; from my experience, I saw equality and respect within my parent’s marriage. Nevertheless, I know that marriage has been (and unfortunately still can be) a ‘patriarchal institution’, but certainly not *only*. Only politics, regions and male perpetrators allow it to be so – not *all* males. For me, the idea of marriage has always been about being with my soul-mate on an equal and respectful level. Anything else is just abuse of the other.
So, who are the “we” and “all” in your “we all opposed marriage in the 70s”? That *then*, let alone *now*, is only a subjective view. Thinking and saying otherwise is just as closed-minded and blinkered as we state homophobes are.

By: Tony Rogers

Tony Rogers — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 02:04:47 +0000

Christine… that’s like saying “the grass isn’t green”.
You clearly choose to ignore the heartache, anxiety and depression that many Rainbow Folk of all ages went through in the lead-up to the ‘government’s lazy-option of the plebiscite to vote in Same-Sex Marriage, where it would be understood that such a needless questioning and ‘debate’ within the Australian public would incite loud venomous hatred through the blinkered right-wing nooks of ‘traditional’-media, and cowardly trolling through social-media, from the minority of Australian homophobes. Trying to cause division is dangerous for the stability of the social-fabric of any country (just look at the effect that division has caused throughout history, let alone current day instances overseas).
Perversely, there was *no* concern for the mental welfare of people! Where (yet again) was the ‘duty-of-care’ that the ‘government’ is *supposed* to provide to the people it is *supposed* to serve (while it happily leaches its wages and funding from those people)?
Yes, Abbott wasn’t the PM then, but he still wielded his ways as was reported. And then he had the hide to say in the news that *he* brought Marriage Equality to Australia (maybe, through a twist, we could even say: “yes”, but *only* through wanting to have a plebiscite because he and his ilk didn’t have the decency to respect Rainobow Folk and their supporters, by just doing their job and bringing in the law themselves).
Family ties are all very good, but you’re better off by replying (in that predictable stereotypical politician avoidance response) “no comment”, or by twisting a white lie, rather than the proverbial ‘grass isn’t green’. If I needed to vote for something that you were in; I’m sorry to say, but I couldn’t trust you for that simple reason, so I wouldn’t vote for you; nor would I recommend you to anyone. Damage to vulnerable people within our Rainbow Community is *not* worth ‘looking the other way’.

By: Ken Davis

Ken Davis — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 07:41:31 +0000

I was a gay liberation activist at Sydney University when Tiny Abbott was a leader of the far-right Democratic Labour Party club. There was not a week went by without their leaflets supporting right wing dictatorships around the world, defending Apartheid, opposing abortion, contraception, sexual freedom and women’s rights, and denouncing homosexuality. At the time Malcolm Turnbull was head of the more liberalLiberal Club. Of course since 1970s many people changed their politics. The evidence is clear that despite Abbott’s defection to the Liberal Party right, that he has retained his anti-woman and anti-queer stance.