#ScoMoPhobia is out of control!

Today in Australia we were treated to the ridiculous spectacle of Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison playing the victim card, saying he’d been subjected to hate speech and bigotry. In general terms I’m opposed to hate and bigotry but it doesn’t count when they’re made up.

Morrison’s ridiculous bleating was in response to Labor Senator Penny Wong saying the government’s proposed plebiscite on marriage equality is a bad idea because opponents will use it as an excuse to inflame hatred and homophobia. I don’t know why she’s so worried, just because of the hateful comments already made by members of the government and other opponents of the safe schools initiative and the so called Australian Christian Lobby saying “pretty please can we be exempted from anti-vilification laws for this plebiscite so we can say what we really think?”

I’m sure there’s lots of reasons you would want to be exempted from laws designed to protect people from undue vilification and it’s pure conjecture that the ACL’s is to push hateful rhetoric any chance they get no matter who it hurts.

Anyway, Scott Morrison has piped up and said he understands Penny Wong’s concerns because he’s “been exposed to that hatred and bigotry for the views I’ve taken“. Yes, when will someone stand up against the oppression suffered by rich straight white men who are actually part of the government actually running the country? What power do you have when you’re only the second most powerful position in the government?

So Morrison has equated being somewhat answerable for things he actually says and does with being vilified and attacked for who you are. Because that’s what bigotry is – being called out for being an arsehole isn’t bigotry, being told who you are makes you a lesser person is bigotry.

So far as people saying hateful things about Morrison, well I guess when you push policies that deny people basic equality based solely on who they love you might get some blowback. Not that it adds to the debate to call Morrison a shit gargling fuckwomble but I can see how some people might be angry enough to say that.

It’s impossible to overstate the fragility of these conservative white christian men. You can almost see the tears in Cory Bernardi’s eyes when someone calls him a homophobe just because he directly associated being gay with bestiality and launches hateful lies against a school programme aimed at protecting LGBTI kids from harassment and bullying.

Calling him a rancid pustule infesting the rectum of Australian politics might seem accurate but can’t you see how oppressed he is? When he spreads his despicable slander with no concern for whose life he’s ruining, he never expected to be held accountable for it!

Social media has taken Scott Morrison’s side with #ScoMoPhobia. You might think it’s ridiculous to say people being angry at Morrison, Bernardi and the rest pushing their bigotry is a form of bigotry in itself. But that’s just because you don’t understand the oppression of rich white christian men. Who literally run the country. WHEN WILL SOMETHING GO THEIR WAY?!?!?!

 

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I have offended “the gays”

Here’s a video I did last week:

I have gone through a huge number of permutations of this since seeing some of the reactions to my video last Friday. For those wondering what they’ve missed with those could have been responses, they were essentially variations of “go fuck yourself”. That’s still my central message, it’s really only the tone of delivery that’s changed.

For those who don’t know, my TFU Friday video was 7.30 minutes long and featured me being angry about, among other things, political and moral hypocrisy resulting in the oppression of gay rights – by closeted gays. But the real fireworks came from the fact I used the phrase “Being gay is a choice.” To some people, this is apparently as bad as setting babies on fire.

And then I compounded my sin by not immediately capitulating to some people’s outrage and begging forgiveness. They appeared surprised when I did not react favourable to being told what I can and can’t say. Guess what? When nazis tell me what I can and can’t say I tell them to go fuck themselves. I say the same thing to christians, muslims, atheists, teabaggers, gun nuts, conspiracy theorists and general haters. Go fuck yourself. And some people think the fact they are gay gives them special dispensation to dictate terms to me? See if you can guess what my reaction to that attitude is. I’ll give you a hint: it rhymes with “go fuck yourself”. I’m an equal opportunity abuser.

If you still can’t tell why these responses pissed me off let me explain. This outrage was generated over three seconds out of a 7&1/2 minute video and that 3 seconds wasn’t even the main point of the video which is why I didn’t put a lot of thought into what interpretation people could put on it if they took it out of context. It isn’t even that they took three seconds out of context in such a long video – a very small number of people have chosen to pass judgement on me based on three seconds despite everything I’ve done here over the years.

If you want me to have any respect for you when you pass judgement on me you had fucking well better put that judgement in the context of every video I’ve made, not three seconds out of one video. Actually, that would take days to watch all of them so that might not be the most practical proposal. Maybe just limit it to watching the video where I talked about bigotry generally and gay rights specifically. I haven’t added those up but that should only take you a couple of hours.

That’s right – that’s how much effort I’ve put into addressing bigotry. What have you done you fucking whiners?

But seeing as so many people do apparently want to know if I think being gay is a choice I will address that directly. To make it clear: my sum total of knowing what it means to be gay is I’m not gay. I wouldn’t waste time trying to make an all encompassing statement about being gay – I doubt anyone can do that but I certainly can’t and that wasn’t remotely what saying “being gay is a choice” was meant to mean.

Having said that, a lot of the outraged comments had a distinct “I am the only gay in the village” tone. It was hard to escape the feeling that a lot of people think they can unequivocally speak for the experience of all gay people everywhere. Kind of a big call.  Hell, in the straight world I see a lot of conflict all the time about what constitutes sexuality and sexual identity – I had no idea things were so clearly defined in the gay world.

One person even went so far as to say sexuality overall was not a choice. All I could think was that their sexuality was very boring if it didn’t involve choices. Or maybe very weird. I make choices all the time: this person/that person, yes/no, this position/that position, do I need batteries, should I go with leather restraints or nylon rope? All sorts of choices.

Also, while I am not one of “the gays” I am one of “the olds”. I know this is the intarwebz and I’m dealing with people who have such a short attention span they don’t remember anything that happened more than 5 seconds ago but I do actually remember when the queer politics orthodoxy was very different, in the olden days. You know, the 80s.

I went to college that had a campus with a very strong Marxist/Leninist/feminist dialectic going on. And back in the day the party line was that being gay was most definitely a choice. The say gays had no choice in the matter was to suggest weakness and even said to be equating homosexuality with base animal urges that needed to be controlled. If you said being gay was genetic you left yourself open to what was essentially eugenics arguments: this “gay gene” was defective and should be treated like any other genetic disorder.

There were seriously even people saying this gay gene should be identified so pregnant women could be tested and defective gay foetuses could be identified in utero and aborted. So careful what you wish for.

Personally, I don’t think homosexuality needs a defence. If you’re gay it’s who you are, regardless of how you arrived there. But if you think you do need a defence to use against social conservatives who declare homosexuality to be somehow “wrong” and you think you have a bulletproof defence with the genetic response, sorry to disappoint you but it ain’t gonna work. Objections to homosexual sex aren’t really about whether or not it’s “natural” (whatever that means), they’re more about “ewww that’s icky.” And no matter what you come up with, the conservatives are still going to think same sex hanky panky is icky.

So yeah, if I had any inkling of how fucking stupidly some people were going to react I might have said “Being gay isn’t an issue, if that’s who you are that’s who you are. But being a lying, hypocritical coward who actively ruins the lives of people who aren’t as privileged makes you a worthless piece of shit.”

And if that isn’t good enough for you, I really don’t give a fuck about you.

Dealing with online bigotry

Here’s the final part of my little series on online bigotry.  In this video I talk about ways to deal with it when you’re on the receiving end of bigotry.

To me, the single most important thing to remember when you’re faced with these morons is that it’s all about you.  Don’t waste time worrying about changing the hateful attitude of bigots – you can’t change them and it isn’t worth the time and effort you’d waste trying.  Decide what works for you and go with that.

If you want to launch into them (like, ummmm… me) then go for it.  If you want to ignore them, then do that.  If you want to delete their comments and block them from making further comments that’s your right.  Don’t listen to any bullshit about “free speech” or how you have to “debate” with them if you disagree with them.

If you take the trouble to create a blog, a website, a forum, a YouTube channel, you have the right to define how that works.  If these worthless, hopeless, gutless losers don’t like what you do, they can fuck off and do something of their own.

I’m not in favour of developing “codes of conduct” or anything similar. I think they’re impossible to enforce in practice and more than a little lame conceptually.  If people don’t understand how to act like a decent human being then don’t waste your time on them.

Bigotry online (part three)

I rambled so much when I was making my video about online bigotry that I filled up my memory card before I’d said everything I wanted to say.  So I shot some more on another day.  I even found another nice seaside location to shoot at.

In this part I talk about (among other things) my own first-hand experiences with racism when some stupid people seemed to think I was an Asian female.

There is one more part to this series of videos where I talk about strategies on how to deal with online bigotry.  Stay tuned.

Bigotry online

Let me tell you what the problem with niggers is…

Better still, let me tell you how I’d solve the the Jew problem in this town…

Or maybe I’d be better off explaining how the Muslims are invading our country…

Actually, speaking as someone who’s been called gay, black, Asian, Lebanese, Jewish, Muslim and several other weirdly inaccurate things by people who thought they were insulting me, allow me to have a little ramble on the topic of bigotry. I’ve even chosen a pleasant setting in which to discuss this unpleasant topic.