But even if I wanted to, I can’t.

So thank you to all of you who have contacted me to tell me to build a bridge, get a life, move on, get a boyfriend/girlfriend and so on. Also, thank you to all the people who contacted me to call me names. I’m especially surprised about the sheer amount of abuse that I’ve received over the last 24 hours. I had no idea that there was so much hate and anger and homophobia in this Country.

Joe Hildebrand from News Limited’s Daily Telegraph made it seem as though I’d complained to HREOC about Telstra when he said “Andrew WANTED to be discriminated against by Telstra.” I never said I wanted to be discriminated against. What person would WANT to be discriminated against? Joe, you’re an idiot.

Through Joe’s deliberate and surgical misuse of my words, my point and my original intentions have been lost.

I want to make a few points very VERY clear to the people who are reading this, and forgive me for the tone, but no matter how hard I try to articulate my position, people just don’t seem to READ WHAT I’M SAYING.

1. I don’t think the Telstra Ad is worthy of a Human Rights and Equality Opportunity Commission Complaint. I do think the ad is not very funny, and I believe it to be a rather stupid attempt at humour, where the punchline only works if you understand fear and prefer cricket over sex.
   But the only reason I ended up at the website www.humanrights.gov.au, was because every other regulatory authority responsibile for advertising issues or complaints would not entertain a complaint that was to do with discrimination. ACMA sends you to Australian Standards Bureau, who then sends you to HREOC, who then says in not so many words, “Sorry, you’re gay, not our issue” This is regardless of the nature of your complaint (unless you got sacked)
2. I’m gay, so I have no recourse to complain about advertisements that offend me because of my sexuality. I say again:
   I NEVER MADE A COMPLAINT ABOUT THE TELSTRA AD WITH HREOC.
   
3. My complaint is that I cannot complain to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission about ANY matter of sexual preference discrimination UNLESS it is soley to do with employment. <– READ IT AGAIN
   Imagine you’re married, and you go to a Gym, and the owner of the Gym says to you, “I’m sorry, we don’t accept people in this Gym who are married.” – If you were to try to complain about the discrimination you encountered, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Comission WOULD CONSIDER YOUR COMPLAINT

   Imagine that you’re gay, and you go to a Gym, and the owner of the Gym says to you, “I’m sorry, we don’t accept gay people in this Gym.” - If you were to try to complain about the discrimination you’d encountered, The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission WOULD NOT CONSIDER YOUR COMPLAINT, because they can legally only entertain complaints of a discriminatory nature if you fall into one or more of the following categories: Sex, Pregnancy, Martial Status, Family Responsibility, Race, Disability and Age.

Gay People Cannot be discriminated against, unless it’s to do with Employment AND ONLY EMPLOYMENT – and that’s just not cricket!

Do you see the discrepancy?

Do you see the discrimination?

If you can’t, close this blog, and don’t come back. I really can’t figure how to explain it more clearly than I have already.

I want to see same-sex marriage become possible for us all. I have received thousands of emails, all of which are abusive and homophobic. Google “Gay Activist Telstra” and read any number of the comments on any number of the sites that come up, and you will see a terrifying picture of just how homophobic Australia is.

The Daily Telegraph and all of its News Limited subsidiaries relied on an abundant and huge amount of latent homophobia in Australia to create a furor on the internet, which meant more of their advertisements (including Telstra ads) would get clicked, which in turn meant they’d make more money.

They used me, my picture, and my situation as a tool to make money. To do that effectively they had to paint me as the bad guy who wanted to complain about Telstra.

I just want to get bloody married.