It’s been over a year since the shit hit the fan and my face was plastered all over every News Limited papers and website Australia Wide. It’s taken me quite some time to deal with how angry I was with… well, everyone, yes, even you possibly.

The homophobes of course had lots of lovely things to say, much of which can be read by reading the comments on this site, and the News Limited websites. Just google (Andrew James Gay Activist Telstra). They were, unsurprisingly, a force United!

What did manage to take me by surprise, however, was how quickly Gay people jumped in on the feeding frenzy too. I found myself being attacked by both sides, and for what?

For nothing.

The show Hungry Beast did a really interesting segment on Outrage Stories, and I wish I had seen it before December 08.
If I had, I’d have known in advance what I was in for, and why it was happening.

Here is the Video and a link to it, in case it doesn’t continue to embed on engayment.org

Sounds awfully familiar. I didn’t make any money out of the whole thing. I wonder how much NEWS Limited did?

So what has been happening since it all ‘went down’, so to speak?

Well, Joe Hildebrand, the Telegraphs finest, is still writing articles and using the word gay whenever he can for no reason whatsoever:

If you can be bothered to read the trash this man writes, and you do see a link between Brangelina and Gay Marriage Equality, please be so kind as to let me know what it is. I might not be smart enough to figure it out.

And I am still writing letters to politicians trying to get the Australian Human Rights Act amended so that people who are discriminated against because of their sexual preference (sexual orientation) are protected like all other human beings in Australia.

As the law stands now, I am entitled to protection from discrimination, harassment, and bullying because of my:

• Sex (including pregnancy, marital status, family responsibilities and sexual harassment)
• Disability, including temporary and permanent disabilities; physical, intellectual, sensory, psychiatric disabilities, diseases or illnesses; medical conditions; work related injuries; past, present and future disabilities; and association with a person with a disability
• Race, including colour, descent, national or ethnic origin, immigrant status and racial hatred
• Age, covering young people and older people

BUT

• If I am homosexual however, I am only entitled to protection provided it is specifically to do with employment matters.
• If I am a criminal, or have been convicted of crimes, I am only entitled to protection provided it is specifically to do with employment matters.

Are you seeing a pattern here?

Tanya Plibersek, has honestly been a great help. She always replies to my emails (even when it takes months). She even went to the trouble of forwarding my concerns to Robert McClelland (the Attorney General), but I never received a response from his office. They said they sent it, but then they said they lost it. Tanya was kind enough to hunt down an electronic copy which she forwarded to me.

In the letter the Attorney General promised to ‘Look into the matter’ and advised that the discrepancy may be included in the next Human Rights Consultation report which was due to be released later that year. Well it was released in September 2009, and guess what? I read the whole damn report, and it made no mention of the fact that Gay and Lesbian people were not protected by the Australian Human Rights Act.

Kevin Rudd never bothers to respond to my emails. He used to, when I gave him website tips while he was running for Prime Minister, but he responds no more. He must be too busy. His marketing staffers do manage to keep my email address on file, so that they can spam me. Most recently I was invited to join his Twitter following, so I could read about how much he enjoyed watching Zombieland, with Therese and the Kids. Isn’t it funny that Kevin07 has time to post tweets about movies he’s watching, but he sadly doesn’t have the time to fulfill presently broken election promises. Actually, no, it’s not funny. It’s terrible.

I was promised, to my face, that if Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister, Gay and Lesbian people would receive equal rights under the law.

I was lied to. We all were.

I’ve been trying for over a year now, to get the Human Rights Act amended to be inclusive and protective of GLBT people.

I have failed, and no one cares.

Just to be clear, for those who don’t get what this rant actually means:

• If you are told “You can’t come into my shop because you’re too fat”, the Australian Human Rights Commission will be able to protect you, and take action against whoever breached one of your basic human rights.

BUT

• If you are told “You can’t come into my shop, faggot”, the Australian Human Rights Commission, will not even read your complaint, because they are legally unable to assist you.

If you care at all, let me know so I don’t feel like I’m the only one.

Join me on twitter @engayment

Joe from the Telegraph took my words out of context and misrepresented what I said.

I was contacted by Joe at the Daily Telegraph about my blog. How he found it so soon, when I only started it a few weeks ago makes the mind wander off to a scary place indeed. Joe at his sticky keyboard googling anything with the word gay hoping to find someone he could publicly embarrass, so that his boss might not fire him for being a crappy blogger? After all, he does work for News Limited, what else do they have to do over there? Surely reporters have no need to write about any of these, what do you call it….news things?

I’m really grateful that Joe superimposed my picture over the tent scene. It makes me look fantastic, and scary. Here is the before and after:

I almost feel like I was in the tent with the thespians, pretending to have gay sex. I wonder if Joe considered putting a moustache on my picture too? Another time perhaps, when he is home alone.

It’s worth mentioning, I did send another picture to Joe but he chose not to use it. I think I look much better in this one:

It’s better if your Gay activists look mean, so, he picked the one he could work with, even if it did involve drawing in an imaginary jaw line where the white light managed to wash me out. What better way to make your Gay activists look bad than to cut out their pictures and superimpose them over a dark background with big angry white text. (For the record, I’m not your mate Joe, or Telstras for that matter).

I looked for a picture of Joe to see if I could return the favour, but sadly, there are only two, and they’re bad enough on there own. Here’s the best of them; I like to call him, baby Joe, cause this is as big as it gets, possibly in more ways than one.
Say hello baby joe :

He would say hello back, but he doesn’t have anything nice to say.

Now that my vanity can be swept aside, onto the issue at hand.

My blog was designed to point out the discrepancies I encountered with our Governement, specifically surrounding Government Policy on same sex marriage in Australia. I encountered a discrepancy when I attempted to make a complaint about a homophobic Telstra Commercial. I did not alert the press about my intention to complain to HREOC, and I was not after media attention. I was just wanting to complain that the ad offended me.

But I received this lovely email from Joe this morning, which made me (believe it or not) think that someone might actually care. I asked him how he found my site, he was shady on the details; “Oh, I don’t know, someone forwarded it to me.”

Here’s the email:

Joe seemed nice right? I called him, and he was lovely on the phone. He wanted to know what upset me about the Telstra Commercial, and I told him that, “What upset me is, we are only led to believe that the two men in the tent are gay because they are afraid when they get caught by their other buddies. The look of fear on their face is the reason we assume they are gay not that we saw shadowy sex through the tent. What’s worse, the characters in the ad are redeemed in the end, much to the audiences releif, when we find out that they are in fact not gay, but rather, watching sport on their cell phone.”
How funny. Sorry Graeme Innes, Commissioner of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, I still don’t get it, unless I try to think like the kind of idiot who’d want to watch anything on a mobile phone whilst paying for Telstra’s ridiculous data rates.

Joe said that my encounter with HREOC would make an interesting story, and it would be one that hopefully sparks some debate. Little did I know, that Joe would be on the opposite side of the debate, batting for the other team,as it were.

Then Joe went on his photo rant, demanding I allow a Telagraph photographer to catpure me in the moment. “We want to take a picture of you looking angry in front of a computer or something.” I explained that I could not take time off work and have my picture taken in my work uniform. I offered to send him whatever pictures I had on my computer. I did, I wish I hadn’t.

Two important Facts, that are sadly lost amongst Joe’s witless rant and my scary picture

• I did not complain to Commissioner Graeme Innes of the HREOC about the Telstra Commercial, (which as hard as I try, I still cannot find funny.)

• I complained to the HREOC that when I had attempted to complain to them about the Telstra Commercial, I was given no opportunity to complain as being gay allows me to only complain if I’m discriminated against in employment. Sexual Preference is a category of discrimination not severe enough to warrant the attention of the HREOC (unless its because you get sacked). Sexual Preference is a category of discrimination equal only to discrimination against convicted criminals, political extremists, and religious fanatics.
  Here are the options you get: (click for larger version)
  

  

Now, I have to give Joe a tiny bit of credit. He did manage to pretend to be nice through an email and an entire phone call. Good Job Joe!

What did I learn, apart from the fact that News Limited continues to hire people who are both bad writers who are only good at twisting other people’s words to try to milk a story out of nothing?

I learned that these are the people who make it harder for me to gain equality and hopefully one day get married. These people are the ones who make it harder for teens coping with homosexuality to accept who they are.

I don’t want special Treatment. I just want to get bloody Married.

She’s lovely, but she can’t help us… Yet.

Minister for Housing; Minister for the Status of Women.

Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting this extraordinary woman. It was the annual Glebe fair, and Tanya and our local member (both members of the Australian Labor Party) had set up a Labor stand on the street, and were generously answering questions all day. Now I have to be honest, I’ve seen this lady on TV, in fact, I watched her with awe as she verbally annihilated Joe Hockey on channel Seven the night that Kevin Rudd won the Federal Election. She smiled, she laughed, and when Kevin Rudd gave his victory speech, she cried. She is, if ever there was, an honest and down to earth Member of Parliament.

So what did I do? 

I asked her about Gay Marriage.

Now, it’s important to mention that from my discussions with Tanya, I’m convinced that she supports the notion of Gay Marriage. She indicated that she had been the MC at her gay friends commitment ceremony, and that she has a long history (being the ALP’s member for Sydney) of being positive and supportive to the gay community.

That said, my issue is not then with Tanya Plibersek the lovely lady I met in Glebe that day, My issue is with the Honourable Tanya Plibersek, Minister for Housing and Minister for the status of Women. Side note: Women and their status get a minister? But gay people don’t? Okay

Anyway, she pointed out to Kyle and I that as Gay men, we should be proud of how far the Rudd Government has progressed in removing a number of discriminatory policies and laws that in the past made our partnership basically null and void. She went on to tell me that as Defacto’s we have the exact same rights and protections as any Married Couple. I was grateful and indicated my pleasure at these facts, but I asked again, “But what about Gay Marriage?” She then pulled a face not entirely dissimilar to this one: 

But it only lasted a second. Then she went back to smiling (and its a beautiful smile) and she reminded me that a few years ago, gay people were getting bashed in the streets. That we have come a LONG way, and that I should remember where I come from.

I asked again, what her policy was on Gay Marriage.

She told me not to get caught up on the word, and that if my relationship was meaningful that should be all that counts. “Marriage is just a word” – Well, if it is just a word, then why wont you let us use it?

She admitted, that whilst her personal opinion may differ, “It is not Labors Policy to support Gay Marriage.”

Oh, no. Well, if Labor is the left wing party (not taking into account the greens), and not even the left wing party of Australia is willing to make it law that any Australian be entitled to Marriage, then who the hell is going to fight for us? Certainly not the right wing and conservative Australian Liberal Party.

So, basically, we are screwed.

As nice as Tanya is, and I mean it, she really is nice, I was so depressed to hear her tell me that it was not ALP policy to support Gay Marriage.

So, this is a rant. I’m going to write her a letter and I will post it when I’m done. If you feel like writing her a letter, please do! She will probably tell you the same thing she told me, but it can’t hurt.

The Hon Tanya Plibersek, Suite M1 45 Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600
Ministerial Office Suite 4&5, Level 10 Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices 70 Phillip St Sydney NSW 2000
Sydney Electorate Office 422 Crown Street Surry Hills, NSW, 2010

Or email her here

By the way, if you ever get a chance to meet Tanya Plibersek in person, do me a favour and compliment her on her smile. I wish I had when I met her, she really does have a killer smile.

Why were we being congratulated? We weren’t engaged? We weren’t anything. We were just agreeing to commit to each other and get rings to symbolise it, which seemed almost pointless because we’ve been together for 2 years, committed the whole time. 

My grandmother called Kyle on the phone to welcome him to the family, which was just lovely, but also confusing. Kyle has been part of the family for two years?

Engagement seems like something worth receiving congratulations over. Commitment is not the same.

I tried to explain to my family that we are not engaged, we are just committed, and they all uttered similar words, “Oh, if you love each other, it’s the same thing!”

BEEEEEEP – WRONG!

It is NOT the same thing. Engagement is what you do when you’re getting MARRIED, which we cannot do.

Because people believe commitment is the same, nothing ever changes. Because gay people overwhelmingly accept the support offered from their family and friends when they say “Congratulations on getting committed! It’s the same thing as marriage!”,  No one gets angry enough to actually do something about it. No one unifies. No one rallies. No one complains to government in large numbers.

Well, I’m angry! I’m angry that when we went shopping for rings, I had to tell the store sales clerk that we were looking for Engayment rings.

Imagine if we lived in country where White people could get married, but Black people couldn’t. The riots that would ensue! People would be screaming to end the human rights violation! People would unify, black and white behind the cause and they would end up toppling the regime that enforced the senseless bigotry.

The Australian Government allowed Kyle to immigrate to this country because he was my partner. They accept his partnership with me as one of significant importance. The fact we are together and have been together for 2 years allows him to benefit from Australian medicare, health care, superannuation, HECS, tax incentives, you name it. But NOT Marriage. But in the eyes of the very government that extends him all of his rights, we are not to be married. Not now. Not ever!

So I want to know who makes these decisions. I want to know what their excuses are for such blatant discrimination. I want to know who they are. I want their decisions to be a matter of record, for all to see.

This blog will document my journey as I challenge the Australian Government to come up with some meaningful answers to the discrimination  many hundreds of thousands of Australian’s must face because of their sexuality). Please feel free to subscribe and show your support.

Engayment is not the same as Engagement and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

We should all be treated the same and until we are, get off your bum and do something about it!