Sticks and carrots

Sticks and carrots

BY DAVID BUCHANAN SC
Various media have carried attacks on the Sydney Convicts for appearing on The Footy Show and Fatty Vautin’s promotion of ACON’s This Is Oz campaign.
Can I give a legal and then a personal point of view? It is not correct to suggest that by appearing on The Footy Show, the Convicts jeopardised Gary Burns’ proceedings against Channel Nine for anti-gay vilification. Either Channel Nine’s broadcast of the Elton Johns -˜skit’ was unlawful anti-gay vilification or it was not. After-the-fact events cannot change the lawfulness of conduct. And neither after-the-fact events nor someone else’s opinion, like that of a Convicts’ spokesperson, provide the basis for a defence under the Anti-Discrimination Act that challenged conduct was done reasonably and in good faith.
Any remedy the Tribunal might grant if it finds the -˜skit’ breached the law is a different matter. If you take the analogy of criminal proceedings, offenders can always make their case better or worse by things they do after their offence, but before they are sentenced.  It then becomes a matter of opinion as to whether the Convicts should have given Channel Nine the chance to mitigate their offence.
I’m more interested in achieving improved outcomes than litigation for the sake of it.  It is better to try to reduce homophobia than simply see homophobes publish an apology in the newspaper.
And there’s a school of thought in discrimination law that suggests there’s no point forcing intransigent offenders to make apologies they don’t want to make.
There is clear evidence the more people are exposed to different sexualities the less homophobic they become. When they get to know us, workmates, family and neighbours discover that trannies and queers are just human like everyone else.
After the Convicts appeared on The Footy Show, people who previously had no idea, and kids struggling with their sexuality, appreciated that footy is played by gay men as well. There are people out there, struggling with their sexuality, who now realise they are not alone.
The This Is Oz campaign is all about reducing homophobia. After Vautin promoted the campaign thousands more became aware of the campaign. There will be people who will think about issues of sexuality differently.
And you never know, as confronting for The Footy Show and Vautin as exposure to homosexuals might have been, there’s a chance they will have moved closer to understanding homosexuality and to understanding that the Elton Johns -˜skit’ may have been more problematic than they previously thought.
No-one’s saying they will be queuing to submit entries at the BGF Bake-Off … but change is a journey and  we’d prefer people start that journey rather than not.
Of course debate is legitimate. And speaking as a lawyer who has represented a community organisation in litigation against homophobes, I have no difficulty with Burns taking proceedings. That’s his right. But it is a mistake for an individual litigant to think s/he is entitled to make decisions for the whole community about the best ways of reducing homophobia in  society, let alone pre-empt what community bodies decide to do.
A more constructive approach would be to appreciate the complementary approaches of sticks and carrots. My guess is the Burns case spurred The Footy Show to do some gay positive media.
Thank you Gary for bringing the case. Thank you Convicts for taking advantage of the opportunity to explode stereotypes.

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5 responses to “Sticks and carrots”

  1. I have to admit I understand where peter is coming from, I have had met allot of gay people who are into activities that are seen as “straight” such as rugby, soccer, boxing etc and allot of the times they are gay guys who do hold a similar attitude that you would find in straight people towards the rest of the gay community.

    They always seem to point out how irritating camp guys are which is just boring to hear, its like they eliminate themselves from anything that remotely resembles “gay”.. its like there constantly swimming in an ocean of insecurity and gay hate – I wouldn’t like these types to speak on behalf of me.

  2. If you knew anything about the Convicts you would know that they are just as “real gays” (whatever that means) as the rest of us, who (if you have even been to one of their shows you would know) love to get dressed up in drag, hit the strip for a drink or march in the annual parade and support all the charities. To suggest otherwise is like calling the Bears “wannabe straights” because they dont manscape every inch of their bodies or follow fashion as slavishly as some.
    We are a diverse community, thats what makes us so special, and gay rugby players fit into that commununity just as much as drag queens, bears, twinks, marching boys and even litigious gay activists do.
    The Convicts have a right to their opinion as much as the rest of us. They dont claim to “comment for any of us” but provide another point on view and another way to breakdown stereotypes.
    Homophobia wont just go away and we all need to work in our own way to show those people who choose not to accept us that we are human like them and deserve their respect as much as the rest of society does.
    Good luck to Gary Burns and Good luck to the Convicts.

  3. how many times thru the ages have we all heard, “we didn’t mean it like that/or in that way”…liars beware, u can only fool people, even the optimists, for a while and as u liars can see around Y’ALL (as ur inbred cousin Britney with her well-documented usage of “the institution of marriage” would say), people’s minds are broadening at a rapid pace of late…finally :)

    my personal response to those smart but obvious liars (also going by the name of homophobes) BULLIAAAAAAAH!!! (as that funny but not footy wife aggressively and insanely states on the FOXTEL ad)

    as for the convicts, i have noticed some gays believe to “join in the fun” with these homophobe criminals is “part of the transition”…these wannabe straight gays should not comment for any of us real gays that realise to be equal is to be diverse, not the same and NOT HAVE TO JOIN IN HATEFUL FUN BUT TO SAY NO…goodonya Gary :X and booooooh to the convicts and the footy show…

  4. Can’t say this author (who spent decades on ACON’s board) is an appropriate choice -“ this is just more Acon spin and biased pro-Convicts propaganda. Fact is the team should have done as asked and waited until the man’s ADB case was over. Acon, as the sponsors of the Convicts, are just being their usual nasty selves. The Convicts were used and now should admit they were wrong to appear on the Footy Show.

  5. Yes there is merit in the Convicts appearing on The Footy Show, but it really comes down to a simple question of not so much ‘please see the bigger picture’ as David suggests, but whether or not the offenders in question really demonstrated their after-the-fact support for the ‘This is Oz’ campaign out of the goodness of their hearts having seen the light or out consideration for their pockets.

    knowing human nature on the balance of probabilities, regretfully I suspect its the latter.

    I also suspect David is an optimist by nature, giving the benefit of the doubt perhaps, but in this case I beleive you arewrong David and have been suckered.