Letters to the Editor

DAVID CAMPBELL #1
After community outrage Channel 7 has backflipped, asserting it was justified in outing David Campbell because he had campaigned as a ‘family man’.
According to this perverse logic, gay men and women are not permitted a family. Campbell has a wife — a life partner — and children, and his efforts to protect them from his ‘secret life’ indicate the depth of his feeling for them. Channel 7 ripped that away.
Coming after Tony Abbott’s admission that he’s “threatened by gays” and the remarks by Jason Akermanis that gay sportspeople should ‘stay in the closet’, this attack by Ch 7 is disturbing for the moral code fomenting.
I have no desire to procreate, but I still regard myself as a family man: I spent the weekend with my brother and sister and our mum — that’s my family. I have a small and valued support network of intimate friends — they are family too. When I feel the need to go out and run with my pack, I’m also among family.
This week Ch 7 attacked my family — and made it clear our privacy cannot be guaranteed from its gutter journalism.
— Patrick
campbell #2
Gary Burns’ comments in The Sunday Telegraph are a disgrace.
Burns has reportedly joined the chorus of homophobic attacks on David Campbell, claiming he “brought the scandal on himself” by choosing to go to a sex-on-premises venue and so risk being identified.
That is a repugnant and ill-considered view: David Campbell has as much right to go to Ken’s as you, or me, or even Gary Burns, and the media have no right to expose anybody’s personal activities without justification.
As a gay man I have been part of a movement that has fought, over many decades, for the right to have sex with whom we please, how we please, where we please.
The reason that venues like Ken’s operate legally and safely is because of this struggle. Burns obviously doesn’t remember the days when raids on sex venues in Sydney resulted in the publication of people’s names and addresses in the press, and the terrible impact that had on those who were named: jobs lost, families broken up.
For someone who glibly calls himself a ‘gay activist’ to support the media’s scandalous attack on this unfortunate man — for doing nothing more than what thousands of us do every weekend — is an appalling lapse of judgement.
And for Gary Burns to declare that Channel 7 cannot be homophobic, merely because Gary Burns has been on TV, shows just how out of touch he is.
— Paul
campbell #3
The fact that David Campbell was transport minister in what is probably the most incompetent and arrogant government that this state has endured for decades, should not have precluded him from relaxing in a gay sex-on-premises venue, a business which is in the premier’s own electorate. As for the F3 motorway chaos, nominally the reason for Campbell’s ‘outing’, what are we paying the RTA’s CEO, Michael Bushby, a large salary to do?
— Garry
campbell #4
I hope the gay press handles coverage of David Campbell’s ‘outing’ as sensitively as possible.
Channel 7 have humiliated a man and destroyed a career and, I would think, brought huge shock and stress to him, his family and friends. Read the many comments posted on news.com and smh.com.au and also SSO’s own website.
I hope that Mr Campbell and those nearest and dearest to him can work through this.
— William
campbell #5
In reaction to David Campbell being outed by Channel 7, Kristina Keneally says, “It is appalling that he lives in a society [in which] he feels he has to live a lie”.
Meanwhile, she and her Labor colleagues have for decades now refused to fix the Anti-Discrimination Act to give full protection to people.
While religious organisations and small businesses are allowed by our government to discriminate on the basis of sexuality, it’s no wonder that people like David Campbell prefer to pretend they are heterosexual.
The Premier’s hypocrisy is sickening.
— Tony Hickey, Sydney federal  Greens candidate
campbell #6
Shame on our unforgiving premier, condemning Campbell for living a double life when he grew up with his inborn sexuality ruthlessly persecuted.
It was criminal to be gay 25 years ago, and many gay people had to get married to avoid exposure. Kenneally’s lack of understanding of this is appalling.
— norrie mAy-welby
FOOTBALL #1
Bring back Gary Burns, gay rights activist. Eddie McGuire, former Footy Show host and current Collingwood Football Club president for over 12 years, needs to grow up.
His latest foot-in-mouth verbiage is as homphobic as his previous outburst for which Mr Burns let him off the hook.
This week McGuire claims that AFL homophobic, Jason Akermanis, “has credibility” just because some others may share similar views. This is the same as rallying support to kill all Jews because many in Hitler’s WWII bunker agreed.
Gay rights are human rights: McGuire is a coward hiding behind a thin veil of vilification.
Go ahead, make my day, prosecute McGuire, I suggest.
— Andrew
FOOTBALL #2
While there’s a stoush between football greats Ian Roberts and Jason Akermanis over the latter’s comments urging gay sports stars to remain closeted (Daily Telegraph, 21/05/2010), what’s the view of former Wallabies coach and broadcaster Alan Jones, famously arrested over allegations of gay sex at a London public toilet?