Qantas CEO Alan Joyce slams both sides of marriage equality debate
Image: Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce. (PHOTO: Ann-Marie Calilhanna; Star Observer)
High-profile marriage equality advocate Alan Joyce has criticised both sides of the Australian marriage equality debate.
The Qantas CEO said the extreme tone of both sides was concerning, ABC News has reported.
“One of the reasons why we weren’t big fans of the postal ballot survey, plebiscite, was that we were worried the tone wouldn’t be respectful,” he said.
“I think clearly on both sides, the extremities of both sides that’s the case, and that is worrying.”
Joyce called on Australians who believe in fairness to vote yes on marriage equality.
“Maybe because I’m an openly gay CEO, we get a lot of profile by this, whether it’s the guy throwing a pie in my face or Margaret Court boycotting us. But the fact is there were 1,300 companies who supported marriage equality in the ad campaign,” he said.
“I’m a big believer in the great Australian expression of a fair go. I think this debate is all about fair go, it’s all about equality and it’s all about respect for love and commitment. And if you believe in those things you should be voting yes in this space.”
Joyce said he was proud of a country where “a gay Irishman could come here and run the biggest iconic brand the country has to offer”.
“This is truly a meritocracy and that’s why I think this marriage equality debate, in my mind, doesn’t represent the best of Australia, because the best of Australia that I’ve seen is giving people a fair go, is about equality, is about respecting people’s love and commitment,” he said.
“That’s why I’m very proud of this country and I hope we can get through some of these debates and show this country for what it really is—a very accepting place.”
Dr Pansy Lai from the tv advert heads Aust Chinese for Family. That site links to thebigdealaboutmarriage website, which quotes junk science. For example, the study on”exgays” is from 2 usa religous universities, with non random participants funnelled via the now closed Exodus. Exodus have issued apology to lgbti community. The religosity ofThe “research” shows more as success of ex gay is measured by. “Chastity”, if this kind of psedo religous science is what Dr Lai relies on as a GP then i dont have a problem with a review by AMA.
All this took 10 minutes for me to find. I get angry that journos dont do this kind of legwork.
I don’t pretend there hasn’t been some poor behaviour committed in the name of marriage equality but it’s a very small number of people doing it. They have in some cases overreacted without thinking (eg the Coopers incident), in some cases given victimhood status to our opponents (eg picketing meetings or using social media to force venues to cancel meetings) and in some very few incidents they’ve physically threatened No campaigners (eg that doctor in the tv ad).
And none of that was necessary and it’s not helped.
But what the Yes campaign has not done in any broad sense is denigrate the relationships of those in “traditional” marriages. And yet every day No campaigners denigrate same sex relationships in the media, they denigrate trans marriage, they denigrate non-traditional straight marriages like mine. It’s the only campaign they’ve got. They have nothing else to say.
So technically Alan Joyce is correct that there have been issues on both sides but he’s wrong to say it’s only on the extremes of the No campaign. If a mainstream, educated, politically savvy guy like Senator Mat Canavan can make my blood boil by insisting that marriages which don’t offer the opportunity of biological procreation are inferior then where is the mainstream Yes campaigner out there declaring that traditional marriage is inferior? There aren’t any.
Mat Canavan is the product of a traditional marriage and his family relationship is so great that he held a press conference to blame his Mum for his being in breach of the constitution. So he’s obviously an expert in functional families and how great traditional families are.
The bottom line is I’m disappointed with Joyce’s comments, they lack any depth of the detail of the campaign and he could have done a lot better.