Letters to the Editor

GAY PARENTING
I came upon a great article by the actor Rupert Everett. I found it very interesting and enjoyable.
He thinks like I do and it is good to read other gay men share the views I have.
Here’s what he has to say about gays who want to be parents.
I think this surrogacy thing is crap. It is utterly hideous. I think it’s egocentric and vain. And these endless IVF treatments people go through. I mean, if you are meant to have babies then great.
But this whole idea of two gay guys filling a cocktail shaker with their sperm and impregnating some grim lesbian and then it gets cut out is just really weird.
If I had the impulse to be a parent, I would adopt -” or foster. But this whole thing of forcing the idea of parenthood on us gay men is so bogus. Marriage? Babies? Please. I want to be illegal. I want to live outside the mainstream.
Everett believes his wish to be outside of the mainstream puts him ahead of the curve.
These awful middle-class queens -” which is what the gay movement has become -” are so tiresome. It’s all Abercrombie & Fitch and strollers. Everybody has the right to do what they want to do, but still…
I totally agree with him. No wonder a lot of us gay men want to create our own gay scene, away from the mainstream, which a lot of us do not want to participate in.
Most of us gay men just want to be gay, because that is who we are. We don’t want to be heterosexualised.
-” John
QUEER TOOTHBRUSHES
We wrote to Minister Ludwig after the toothbrush advertisement appeared in the print media on March 31 pointing out it was a complete waste of space because it gave existing Centrelink clients no useful information.
In fact it gave them some misinformation. It implied that couples are couples and there’s no difference between same-sex ones and married ones. That’s not what the legislation says.
Centrelink clients need to know that if they are in a same-sex relationship they are likely to be changed over from a single pension rate to a married couple’s outdated rate when each gets a much lower rate than a single person from July 1.
On Melbourne’s JOY Radio Centrelink’s general manager told listeners on February 12 that Centrelink’s publication, News for Seniors March edition, would explain the changes.
It’s a quarterly publication mailed to clients.
That issue has never arrived so why isn’t the information in these expensive and useless advertisements?
If it goes to all aged pensioners they must know who they have on single pensions in the system so surely they could have used the money they are spending on these ridiculously expensive non-informative advertisements to send a letter with full details to single aged and disability pensioners detailing the situation exactly for same-sex couples.
Federal ministers should have fought for a grandfather clause or an alternative. Dump the outdated 19th century interdependent couple status rate altogether and treat all couples the same as singles.
-” Kendall Lovett, Lesbian & Gay
Solidarity (Melbourne)
DRINKING AGE
I am furious with the infantilisation of young adults. As I hear there is a push to raise the drinking age of voting adults from 18 to 21 I am livid.
The other day I was in a bottle shop that was demanding ID of anyone under 25. That is appalling discrimination.
Since we had a Liberal Party Prime Minister who didn’t leave the comfort and security of his parents’ home until he was in his dotage I have witnessed the discrimination against young adults starting with the social security system.
By the time I was 21 I had left home, put myself through high school, got into Law, had slaved in refuges, was on a taskforce for a white paper for Cabinet on domestic violence and it would be an outrage if I couldn’t have gone out for a drink.
If wowsers want to raise the drinking age to 21 then raise the age young adults can join the armed forces to 21. If the drinking age is raised I don’t want to see one teenager in uniform.
-” Terri
ARTISTS’ QUArTER
Artists are often -˜used’ to bring life into an area.
Remember Blackwattle Studios on the wharf at the end of Glebe Point Rd? This vibrant, inspiring artist collective transformed a backwater into a trendy place.
When the property was put on the market, it had the allure of -˜cool’. Not so cool for the artists who lost their studio and business premises though.
It is near impossible for creative folk to find an affordable studio or a showroom for their work and it’s undeniable this is the sort of thing that makes a city -˜cool’.
Any reference past and present to an artist quarter in a city always conjures up a positive emotion.
The concept from the Potts Point and Kings Cross Society to broker deals between artists and building owners with vacant buildings is progressive and, in these difficult retail times, is multi-faceted in its benefits. It stops the area looking like it’s in its death throes, attracts people, and local art/crafts/goods are made and sold. The area is -˜cool’.
-” Wendie
FAIR’S FAIR
I was halfway through making a phone booking for Evita Bezuidenhout when the operator informed me this film would cost $49-$50 per ticket.
I asked why a film should cost so much and was told, It is a charity function.
Charity function or not, $50 just to see a film is beyond the pale. When will the organisers of gay events realise that pink dollar does not mean bottomless pit pink dollar?
Fair’s fair, guys. How about bringing some reason into such events. You might also reduce the cost of the BGF grandstand seat by $100 or so.
Until then gays will increasingly lose the urge to support their own community. What a shame.
-” Ronnie
GAY SCENE
What is happening here in the south-west of the city?
There is no such thing as a gay scene here. At the end of October last year the first Out West dance party was at Ingleburn. It was not bad for a first.
Now in 2009, about a month ago, the Out West dance party created an event that was cancelled and there is no reason for the cancellation.
I feel the gay scene is being pushed out of the south-west area. I love Oxford St, but it can be a pain travelling by train all the way there and later travelling all the way back to Campbelltown.
We need a new scene here. It’s becoming too painful to travel for an hour and a bit to the city just to have some fun.
­-” Chris
BE VIGILanT
Australians must be eternally vigilant against those who seek to bulldoze changes to our Constitution, without regard to the fact that the only way to change this document is for ordinary Australians to actually vote for such changes.
There must be a majority of Australians in a majority of states voting yes for any changes to our Constitution to take effect.
Mr Rudd, in his recent visit to the United Kingdom, and just before seeing the Queen, announced that Australia would become a Republic. Not may (that is, if Aussies voted for it), but would, as if Australians have no say in the matter.
This was presumptuous of Rudd and shows his true colours: his belief that Australians are only capable of being led by the nose, and are incapable of making their own decisions.
To Rudd I would say 54 percent of Aussies voted in the 1999 referendum against a republic.
Even in your own Labor party, 43.4 percent voted the same way in 1999!
I remain gobsmacked at the low standards of our leadership.
-” Ronnie
WELL DONE
I’ve been disappointed recently with the reporting in some news publications in regards to statements from George Pell -” superficial to the point of being misleading.
However, SSO’s March article [SSO 963] on the gay-operated cafe in Maroubra was a great insightful glimpse at societal homophobia in Sydney in 2009.
Just the sort of article you would expect to see in a summary of the year or even the decade.
Well done, Ani Lamont and well done, SSO.
-” Craig