The audacity of courage

On British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s recent visit to Washington, he presented President Obama with a first edition, seven volume biography of Winston Churchill and a pen holder carved from the timbers of a British warship -” the sister-ship of the Resolute, which provided the wood for the Oval Office desk.
In return, Obama gave Brown a box set of 25 Hollywood movies, including The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca and Star Wars.
The British press is fuming.  This transgression of the centuries-old tradition of foreign leaders bearing gifts imbued with historical significance has not gone down well.
This week, Prime Minister Rudd will meet with Obama for the first time.  According to Rudd’s office, they will discuss pressing issues such as how to ease the impact and stem the growth of the global financial crisis and military strategy in Afghanistan.
Similarly, both leaders are faced with an increasingly resilient and growing Taliban in Afghanistan, whose reach and power base has now stretched to much of Pakistan.
Hopefully, progress will be made on both fronts. After all, the two leaders have much in common.
Both Rudd and Obama are currently being criticised for their handling of the economic crisis.  Rudd’s economic stimulus package is being challenged in the High Court, and progressive columnists in America are criticising Obama’s timidity in dealing with AIG executive remuneration in the face of corporate bailouts.
Both leaders seem to believe they are caught in an intractable imbroglio of balancing the appeasement of evangelical lobbyist groups against the increasing percentage of the population in both the US and Australia who believe the time for treating one group of citizens as a different class from another has long passed.
Last year Rudd, to his great credit, removed all forms of discriminatory legislation for de facto same-sex couples.
And at present, Obama is looking at ways of removing discrimination for same-sex couples in areas such as health insurance, the military, and superannuation.   But this, and this alone, is not enough.
Same-sex couples in both countries are still unable to celebrate their relationships in the form of marriage or federal civil unions.   This is at a time when 75 percent of Americans favour same-sex marriage and/or civil unions.
Two years ago now, 54 percent of Australians supported same-sex marriage.
Let’s hope this visit allows both leaders to develop the audacity of courage.  And frankly, I don’t care if Rudd returns with a copy of the Wizard of Oz.
As a Friend of Dorothy, I’ll be a little more concerned if he returns without the courage to implement the long-awaited right for same-sex couples to celebrate their love in front of friends, family and under the law.

Emily Gray is the convenor of the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby.