Letters to the editor – Melbourne

Letters to the editor – Melbourne

SCAR TISSUE

Any discussion of erectile dysfunction drugs is incomplete without mentioning a potential side effect of their usage — Peyronie’s disease.

This disease, for which there is no satisfactory treatment, results from injury during intercouse and the subsequent formation of penile scar tissue. This scar tissue is inflexible and causes the penis to curve during erection. Approximately 6 percent of middle-aged men have this condition. When I developed this condition, I was unaware that a disease like this even existed. In frustration, I started an informational website, http://www.curepeyronies.net Every email I get describes a man in a desperate situation with nowhere to turn.

Urologists must do a better job of informing patients about this disorder and there should be additional research efforts to find an effective treatment.

— David

CIVIL RIGHTS

The vast majority of Australians are united in our determination to choose our own destiny.

Within 10 years we will have full equality, and those who stand against our civil rights, will be placed in the same narrow corners of history, as those who stood against the civil rights of people who were not white.

We are simply asking for our right to live as freely as the next person. We seek full equality before the laws of this country, to have the same civil rights as any other person.

The opposition to our civil rights is from a tiny minority. They are but small bumps along the Yellow Brick Road and easily defeated with facts.

To quote from a great man who understood discrimination:

“To penalise someone because of their sexual orientation is like what used to happen to us; to be penalised for something which we could do nothing [about] — our ethnicity, our race. I would find it quite unacceptable to condemn, persecute a minority that has already been persecuted.” Nobel Peace Prize winner and Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

— Dave

RIGHT TO CHOOSE

The point of having gay marriage legalised is not to force homosexuals to get married, it’s just so they can have the option.

I’m bisexual and I don’t really care whether or not I get married. A civil union is fine by me, but the point is if I end up with another woman I’d at least like to know I have the same right to choose to get married as I do with a man.

— Moonie

THE NEW GH

The singing of happy birthday to Vivien St James would have been the highlight of the gala opening night for me.

The Greyhound would never have gotten to the place it is today if not for Vivien. She was the one people came to see. She was responsible for building that place up.

I love Paris, and Paris is certainly the brains behind the whole gig, but Viv was always the glamorous showgirl people came especially to see. What a shame this isn’t shouted out from the rooftops!

I worry the GH is not going to be as endearing any more. A lot of what was special about the place is going to be lost. There was something to be said for a homely pub. It now will probably be like a Zuzus type club from the ’80s. Don’t get me wrong, I love those kinds of places, and I used to love going to Heat.

But the GH always had that slightly smelly, sticky local feel, where you could share a smoke, and was intimate and holds a lot of personal sentimental feelings. It will always be my special place.

— Toni

FREEDOM TO SPEAK

“[A]nd, I have no doubt, other snake-oil peddlers, such as Mormons and Scientologists, are guilty too. It is time to stop subsidising these dangerously deluded people and get them away from the children.” (Doug Pollard, ‘Grumpy Old Poof’, SSO 135)

As soon as you start down the path to discriminate against people’s beliefs and enact laws to prohibit them, it is not too much further down the same path that those same laws (or variations of them) will be turned against other minorities including racial groups and the gay community.

There are better ways to stand up for one’s rights and protect the rights of children–attacking the beliefs of others isn’t one of them. A religious person’s freedom to speak and act is the same freedom as a gay person’s. You cannot stop one without stopping the other. Think about it.

— Arthur

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