A thread of complicity for violence and exclusion

A thread of complicity for violence and exclusion

jedhornerIf ever there was an argument against having a referendum on marriage equality, we saw it over the past week. Anti-equality activists opposing amendments to the federal Sex Discrimination Act have made ludicrous claims that, amongst other things, being gay, lesbian or bisexual is a “transitory” sexual orientation, providing protections from discrimination for same-sex couples is an act against nature, and everyone who identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* or intersex is an “aberration”.

For many, this is just more of the same bigoted rhetoric. But it’s becoming more sophisticated, as opponents of equality for LGBTI people hide behind the veil of religious sensitivity, the same veil that underpins exemptions in current anti-discrimination law and gives this cancer we call discrimination room to breathe.

Whilst many of the organisations and individuals making these assertions claim that they disavow violence directed at LGBTI people, there is a thread of complicity that runs through their casual statements in support of discrimination and social exclusion. This thread of complicity means that they bear a responsibility for higher rates of suicide and intentional self-harm, acts of opportunistic violence, and pervasive forms of exclusion that touch the lives of too many LGBTI people.

In practice it is often hard to disentangle precisely which words led a young person to take their life due to homophobic bullying, and the cumulative impact of social exclusion arising from homophobia, biphobia and transphobia is so great that we may never know its full extent across society.

We can only count the casualties, including those who do self-harm, commit suicide or, more encouragingly, seek help. We can never truly count the cost of this language to those who suffer in silence. But we can, and we must, name and expose discriminatory language and conduct, even when it is veiled in the sophisticated, but no less corrosive, rhetoric of religious sensitivities.

We don’t need a plebiscite for bigots over marriage or anything else that affects the community. We need courageous politicians to stand up, to do what is right and to stare down these opponents who are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their use of hate-filled language; language that is not removed from everyday life, but instead shapes, and participates in it, with real consequences. We need people who are more like Neal Blewett and Peter Baum, visionaries who had real principles and real purpose at the height of the HIV epidemic, and less like opportunists. If we open ourselves up to the bigots, it will be a pyrrhic victory and they’ll extract an even heavier price from us all than they do now.

by Jed Horner  •  NSW GLRL

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