Aretha Franklin sang about it. Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King spoke about it. We hear the word all the time. Respect. You are to show respect. You must respect your elders, respect your teachers, respect your pastor or priest, respect the Parliament, even respect your opponents.
This week has brought into stark relief the notion of respect again for me. Once again, it is over the marriage equality debate in Australia. That snail-paced item of social progress that it seems forever is just out of reach, just beyond our grasp. For the first time in history, Australia has full agreement and full support of the leaders of all our political parties. Even the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are feuding friends over marriage equality. They are in concert that Australia should allow its gay and lesbian citizens the right to marry our partners. But still, we cannot get there! It is incredibly frustrating!
We are faced now with the idiotic imbecilic situation that despite over two thirds majority of Australians consistently supporting the change, the leaders of the Parties in support of the change, the majority of Parliamentarians in support of the change, and the High Court of Australia saying that it is in the purview of the Parliament, and nowhere else, to make decisions concerning the Marriage Act, we are not able to have a free vote in the Parliament but must take the country to a monumentally expensive and divisive plebiscite on the matter, only to subsequently return to the Parliament to have the vote we're not having now.
It begs the question. Why?
It would appear that the price of the National Party's and conservative Liberal's support for Malcolm Turnbull in the recent Prime Ministerial dumping was that Turnbull inter alia hold the line on marriage equality. In other words, while he himself is totally supportive of the change and is local Member of an electorate that has one of the largest populations of LGBT people in the entire country, he has tied himself to Tony Abbott's backward and obstructionist policy; a policy that Turnbull himself spoke out against when he was still Minister of Communications before his ascension to the big office.
The plebiscite itself was Abbott's idea alone; an idea designed to impede progress of the issue while the opponents lined up and spent millions of dollars in order to attempt to stop this change from happening. For them, on the issue of marriage equality, they would wear it as a badge of honour to be the anomaly of major Western countries who have comfortably lived with their LGBT people marrying without civilisation or the Church falling into a chasm. They would comfortably and happily deprive gay and lesbian people of their right to be treated the same as everyone else and the happiness they would derive, against the clear will of the majority. These people will not hesitate.
In the Parliament yesterday, Malcolm Turnbull vomited out a whole lot sweet and saccharine statements about Australians having the ability to have a sensible conversation, to bring their collective wisdom to this, to have a respectful and open dialogue as we have the discussion over the lead up to the plebiscite. He placed much weight on the wisdom and grounded nature of Australians as the discourse would develop.
Not for me! From my experience, I've never heard so much rubbish and I think Turnbull is smart enough to know it. Have you seen the comments sections in newspaper articles and blog posts around marriage equality? Have you ever been in a Facebook thread where marriage equality is being discussed and some opponent lobs in one of the well-known hand grenades they are so fond of? Have you heard Eric Abetz talk about marriage equality? Have you heard Concetta Fierravanti-Wells tell us all that non-Anglo Australians are all opposed to marriage equality?
Have you heard what the Catholic Church still officially teaches and proffers by Australian Catholic apologists about gay people? That we are intrinsically disordered, we are inclined to moral evil and are against the natural order. Have you heard what Lyle Shelton of the Australian Christian Lobby or Fred Nile from the Christian Democratic Party say of gay people? Here's a basic off the top of my head list of what Bible-believing [read: fundamentalist] evangelicals think about gay people. Being gay is a choice. Being gay can be changed. Being gay is not part of the identity. Being gay is a sin. It is a behaviour that can be stopped and should be repented of. It is an abomination. It is a rejection of God. It is base. It is disordered. It is anti-scriptural. Gay people will not see God nor enjoy eternity with God. God will punish gay people. Being gay itself is a punishment by God for godlessness. And if you happen to be Pentecostal, you will throw in that being gay is caused by a demon and that we are all possessed.
Now, let's go back to where I started. About respect. I understand and accept the maxim of "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it". I understand why this is right. It is because the only logical alternative to this is epistemological coercion ie., I force you to think the way I do. Some have tried this: Fidel Castro, Lenin and Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, the Kim dynastic dictatorship of North Korea. All have attempted to coerce thinking and to enforce knowledge. A strong belief in the maxim above protects against the worst excesses of coercive thought. BUT, while I agree with the right to express thoughts freely, with the caveat that you are not expressing hate speech or inciting violence, it does not mean that I respect your views.
You can be racist. I can't stop you. But don't ask me to respect your view.
I don't respect you.
You can be sexist. I can't stop you. But don't ask me to respect your view.
I don't respect you.
You can be homophobic. I can't stop you. But don't ask me to respect your view.
I don't respect you.
You can be a religiously motivated bigot. I can't stop you. But don't ask me to respect your view.
I don't respect you.
The fact of the matter is that a plebiscite on marriage equality gives equal and equivalent weight to those who are implacably opposed to my being married to my partner of fifteen years. Can you imagine the outrage if the situation were reversed; if Australians were being asked to evaluate straight relationships to see whether we would approve socially? A plebiscite gives equal weight and moral equivalence to those who are only too willing and eager to judge me according to unscientific standards that are outdated, unjust and harmful, to those who are conservative Christians who believe that intrinsically I am a sinner, a rejecter of all that is good and encumbered by a willful opposition to the natural order only to be judged by a God who will cast me into the fires of hell for eternity for my wickedness. A plebiscite allows such as them to evaluate the morality and praxis of my relationship.
Malcolm Turnbull could not be more wrong. A Government-funded No campaign in a plebiscite will draw out the opponents of marriage equality who are not only quiet and inoffensive, but will unleash a flood of derogation of gay people by the conservatives, the crazies, the nutters and the Christians who believe we're all filthy sinners and possessed. He is deluded if he thinks otherwise.
But the right thing to do is not a matter for the democratic voice. Sorry, but it's not. Discriminating against gay people because of our sexual orientation is just wrong; no matter whether one disagrees with me or one hundred million disagree with me. Treating gay people as second class citizens will never be right. We shouldn't vote on whether racism is okay or homophobia is okay within limits or sexism is okay. They're not. And they never will be. It' s not a matter for a vote.
We should have the right to marry our partners and Turnbull should use his undoubted oratorical skills, his numbers in the Parliament, his place in the polls and his stated personal position to stand up and do the right thing and to stop being so cowardly by being frightened of the Nationals. He is looking pathetic.
I will respect anyone's right to think however they damn well please within the caveat mention above, but don't ask me to respect clearly wrong discrimination and the bigoted ugly language that goes with it.
Prime Minister Turnbull, stop being such a wus and get this to the Parliament and bring the damn thing to a vote.
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