DOUG POLLARD
Dear Ted. I think you鈥檙e a decent bloke with a strong sense of what鈥檚 fair and right. I sense you鈥檙e impatient with ideology, and more at home with common sense and practical policies.
During the election you promised $4m to tackle the epidemic of depression, self-harm and suicide among young LGBTIQ people. And I鈥檓 happy to see you came good on that promise. It makes sense.
But you鈥檙e also pumping money into programs fuelling that epidemic.
That doesn鈥檛.
It鈥檚 hard enough navigating adolescence when you鈥檙e healthy, good-looking, heterosexual, and reasonably affluent, with supportive friends, teachers and family. As you would know.
But what if you鈥檙e not? What if your developing sexual feelings are towards members of your own sex?
And then what if you have a religious instruction teacher who teaches that those feeling are sinful? What if the school chaplain counsels you to suppress your desires, and says the only honourable choice is to deny yourself love and remain alone your whole life?
And having been taught those notions, the other students in your school see nothing wrong in bullying you.
But you can鈥檛 tell your parents, because you think they鈥檒l hate a gay son or daughter. So you try to be straight, dating members of the opposite sex, lying to your friends and family. You鈥檙e completely alone and constantly terrified you鈥檒l slip up.
It鈥檚 no wonder kids crack up, self-medicate with drugs and alcohol, become depressed, and harm themselves, perhaps even fatally.
Now at least there will be $4m to help put some of these damaged kids back together again. Thank you. But wouldn鈥檛 it be better not to break them in the first place?
Wouldn鈥檛 it be better to have non-judgemental counsellors in schools to tell them 鈥� and their parents 鈥� the truth? That their feelings are perfectly normal and there is nothing wrong with them.
That religion deals in unsupported belief, not verifiable facts, and the facts say something quite different about sexual orientation or gender identity.
So why is your Government funding closed-minded, single-faith 鈥榚vangelising鈥� on children by chaplains and religious instructors?
Why is your Government giving special rights and privileges to those who would deny GLBTIQ people jobs, homes, services on the basis of their unsupported prejudices, disguised as 鈥榝aith鈥�?
Does it make any sense to have your Attorney-General and your Education Minister spend thousands creating misery, and then have your mental health and social services ministers spend millions more trying to make it better? Of course it doesn鈥檛. And as a sensible, practical, compassionate man, you know it.
So please take courage and do the right thing. Thank you.
