STOP SAFE Schools Coalition wants to prevent LGBTI youth from attending same-sex formal
Image: A previous Minus18 same-sex formal. Image supplied.
AN online group has spoken out against the support of LGBTI youth provided by the Safe Schools Coalition, and encouraged its followers to prevent teenagers from attending an upcoming formal for sexually and gender diverse people.
The Facebook group recently asked followers to purchase tickets to the formal as a way to prevent teenagers interested in attending from going.
“The more tickets sold to us the more youth we protect,” the STOP SAFE Schools Coalition post read.
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Youth-led LGBTI organisation Minus18 and Safe Schools Coalition recently introduced a national resource to help teachers make high schools more inclusive and knowledgeable on sexually and gender diverse students.
Minus18 are also the organisers of the upcoming same-sex formal.
Chief Executive of Minus18 Micah Scott said he felt exhausted looking at the group’s page on Facebook.
“It’s one thing to be critical of a program or to be critical of services and organisations, but it’s a completely different ball park to rally against young people who are already vulnerable,” he told the Star Observer.
“For most young people the formal is the one night of the year where they can be themselves, and to have an event like this is one of the single most empowering things you can have as a teen when you’re LGBTI.
“Reading through the comments reading their social media page, I just think it comes from a place of ignorance and hate… and it takes a special kind of hate to hijack a celebration of diversity.”
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Minus18 have set up a crowdfunding site allowing people to sponsor a young person to attend the formal, which has already seen major success over STOP SAFE Schools Coalition’s attempt to sabotage the sales.
At the time of publication the sponsors have donated a total of almost $28,000.
“It’ll enable us to extend the capacity of the venue, and can work to counteract the false sales we’re experiencing,” Scott said.
“This is really the direct result of what happens when the Australian Christian Lobby and conservative groups start attacking LGBTI programs… the guise they have is to protect young people, but young people unfortunately get dragged into it.”
Josh Makawe is a 17-year-old student who plans to take his boyfriend along to this year’s formal, after not being allowed to take someone of the same-sex to his school’s formal.
“At my last school they were accepting of me being gay, but they were hesitant about me taking someone,” he told the Star Observer.
“They didn’t really give me a reason, they just said no.
“The same-sex formal is a really good place and you won’t be able to experience it in your own school… young people should try their best to ignore people who are full of hatred towards something that’s normal, something that’s okay.”
If you’d like to sponsor an LGBTI youth to attend Minus18’s same-sex formal, visit here.
STOP SAFE Schools Coalition was contacted for comment but did not reply.
If a heterosexual is upset for having his/her marriage redefined from being “married to a man/woman” to “being married with a person of any gender”, then why are you ignoring their feelings?….the whole push for same sex marriage to be legal is because it hurts the feelings of same sex couples and is “hateful”, “bigoted” and “discrimination”…..so to do the same to heterosexuals who feel that their marriage is being damaged by a different “marriage” law then so too, it is being “hateful”, “bigoted” and “discrimination” against heterosexuals – you can’t have it both ways. You all like to make fun and mock heterosexuals when their feelings are being trashed and ignored, but you cry “hatred/bigotry/discrimination” when it is a homosexual. There is no love or equality in your comments or your agenda – just bullying and intimidation.
A pro-SSM advocate said that is it “manifestly weak: having to slip in a pronoun when referring to your spouse just to convey your heterosexuality hardly seems burdensome enough to warrant denying marriage to same-sex couples.”….then equally, it is “manifestly weak: having to slip in a pronoun when referring to your spouse just to convey your homosexuality hardly seems burdensome enough to warrant allowing marriage to same-sex couples.”
There is no hatred, bigotry or discrimination to uphold the millennia-old understanding that marriage is solely between a man and a woman. At worst, it is just a difference of opinion, and at best, it is upholding history for a reason – opposite sex marriages are the only way that civilizations can thrive and be prosperous (you can have children to start with and then to structure ethics, honesty and decency). The family unit is vital to how society functions and when it is distorted or changed, so does society. Already, heterosexual children are told not to use the terms “boy, girl, him, her, mummy, daddy, etc” because these terms are gender specific and oppose the same-sex/transgender identification – so heterosexual people (from a very young age onwards) are impacted in thousands of ways by the same sex marriage re-definition. Plus all heterosexual marriages change from being recognised as “married to a member of the opposite sex for life” to “someone I am temporarily having sex with” which, for me, would be insulting if I was in anyway assumed to be married just for sex or to another man. So every time I say the words “I’m married”, my marriage is being damaged by the re-definition of marriage. My feelings are as valid as any homosexual’s feeling and should be equally considered seriously in the whole same sex marriage debate. Failure to do so shows that the same sex marriage issue is not about love and equality, but solely a political stunt to legalize rampant hedonism and a blatant attack on Christianity. If you want honesty, then there it is.
The Rome Empire that had rampant hedonism and debauchery in the 1st-3rd centuries were not Christian (they killed Christians for sport in the “circuses” where lions would eat Christians) and the Emperor Constantine turned to Christianity as a way out of the horrors going on in the Roman society. So there is a perfect example of how we must also avoid the same horrors of rampant hedonism and debauchery by following the Christian teachings. In other words, we can be “saved from ourselves”. The ACL are highlighting the unfair and dishonest name-calling and dirty political tactics used by the same sex lobby group to silence their critics and shove their agenda down our throats. This will be highlighted a thousand times as the same sex lobby group continue with their dishonest bully tactics and prove the ACL to be true over-and-over-and-over again.