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 was the journalist (if that’s what you can call him) who twisted my words and put my doctored face all over the national press on Tuesday.

Today Joe posted that Gays are going to Hell on his News Limited Editorial
- There is a chance that he is trying to be funny, but in the words of one of the commenters on this blog, ‘Even if a whole nation tried to convince me otherwise, I still wouldn’t find this funny.’

Imagine if he wrote ‘Blacks are going to Hell’  - Is it still funny then?

Also, why is Joe emailing me to wish me a Happy Christmas?

We had a discussion on the phone on 2UE radio on Tuesday Night. Ben Fordham threw Joe on the line as a surprise – Thanks Ben.

In that conversation, Joe was unapologetic for his actions and tried to make out like it was all a bit of fun. He said that he had emailed me explaining himself, and I pointed to his dishonesty by explaining that I’d not received any contact from him at all, since he had posted his article in the paper.

Yesterday, he emailed me to wish me a Happy Christmas. I especially like the part where he spells my name wrong.

Joe,

You wish me a Happy Christmas?

People are abusing me because you twisted my words and made me look like a moron – ‘In this case, Andrew James wanted to be discriminated against by Telstra’ – You know my complaint had nothing to do with Telstra.

Also, I know it was you that gave Marcus Middleton from Channel 7 my private phone number without my permission.

I really hope that one day Joe, if you get married (which is legal by the way – unless you’re gay), and you have a child, that your child turns out to be a Homosexual. I wonder if that day ever comes, how you will explain to your gay son or daughter, that you vilified (through me) an entire minority group – for money.

You trick people, and spread hate for money, and that makes you a very despicable person.

Happy Christmas? No, I don’t think so Joe.

When I discovered that the Australian Human Rights Commission would not hear any sexual preference discrimination complaints (other than employment complaints), I wrote the Minister Tanya Plibersek a Letter.

I was stupid, in that I mentioned the Telstra Ad that had spurred me to look into making a complaint when I wrote the letter, and of course, this is what The World and Tanya focused on. 

I asked Tanya to explain to me why there was a discrepancy at www.humanrights.gov.au surrounding sexual preference discrimination. Tanya had assured me in person a few weeks earlier that there were NO DIFFERENCES between Homosexual people and Heterosexual People in terms of Government Policy (Apart from Marriage). So I was shocked and confused to find this discrepancy on their website.

My issue is that the Australian Human Rights Commission WILL NOT handle a complaint made about Sexual Preference Discrimination (Unless it is specific to Employment, and only employment).

Why can’t they handle sexual preference complaints?

Because it’s the Law.

Who can change the Law?

Politicians.

Who is a politican?

Tanya Plibersek.

What does Tanya Plibersek say about the fact that the Australian Human Rights Commission is bound by a discriminatory law that has supposed to have been fixed?

Because I was stupid enough to preface my letter by mentioning Telstra, Tanya went on to give me advice on how to complain about the Telstra Commercial. I really wish I had not mentioned it, because it subsequently meant that Tanya did not answer my question as to WHY the Australian Human Rights Commission is not legally capable of handling Sexual Preference Discrimination complaints that fall outside of the realm of Employment Issues.

I want to know why this law has not been changed?

I will have to respond and ask Tanya again.
 
If you choose to comment on this Article, do me, the world, and yourself a favour, and don’t mention Telstra or their stupid Ad.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT TELSTRA

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.

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.

So I’ve sent Tanya Plibersek an email via the ALP website contact form, here it is:

I will post Tanya’s response, as soon as I get it.

If you wish to send Tanya Plibersek a letter, you can do so here : 
ALP website contact Tanya Plibersek form

Karen from www.humanrights.gov.au responded, quickly I might add.
Sadly her response is a palm off. Not her fault, but still…
Here it is:

My favourite part is the quote at the end: “Human rights: everyone,  everywhere, everyday”
Well, no so much Everyone Karen. Maybe you should update your quote to be:
Human Rights: Everyone, Everyone except Gay People, Everywhere, Everday.

So, Tanya Plibersek who told me that the Rudd government has wiped clean all of the human rights discrepancies was either not telling me the truth, or she was wrong.

Time to send her a letter.

I woke up this morning and logged in to www.smh.com.au to read the news. Telstra pays a fortune to advertise on fairfax, and in their most recent campaign for Next Gen Mobile coverage they try to be funny in a homophobic and utterly stupid way.

Here is the ad (click the speaker to enable sound, although I don’t recommend it)

It shows people in tents at night in a camping ground. One of the men in the tent looks at his phone and then asks his tent mate ‘Gibbo’ what he’s doing. He replies and says he is doing nothing. The first man asks Gibbo what Barry is doing, and Gibbo says he does not know. We see an empty tent. Inside it, Barry is no where to be found. We then see another tent with shadows moving inside it in a way that suggests more than one person is inside it. We then see inside the tent that has two people moving around, and two men look up as though they have been caught doing something untoward. They look very worried they have been caught doing something their friends would dislike.  It then turns out they are watching football on a mobile phone.

This ad implies that Barry is gay, and he has been caught having homosexual sex in a tent. Gay men who do choose to have sex in a tent should not have to be afraid of getting ‘caught’ by their friends. The ad implies that being gay, or having homosexual sex is something to be ashamed of. The look on Barry’s face and his friends face when they realise they have been caught is the reason we assume they are gay. They are scared, and ashamed. This was the intention of the advertiser. The audience see’s that they are scared and ashamed and is led to believe they have been having sex with each other, the audience is then supposed to be relieved when they realise Barry is not in fact having gay sex with his friend, but instead they are watching football on their mobile phone together. The men and their reputations are saved. This is blatantly homophobic and very offensive.

So I went to www.humanrights.gov.au to make a discrimination complaint. But it turns out that the Australian Federal Government Department tasked with eradicating discrimination, is itself, discriminating against gay people.

They only deal with sexual preference discrimination if it is to do with some kind of employment issue. If you’re being discriminated against by a company who offers a service, or by any other organisation, they will not assist you. Your complaint is void. Here is the options you get to choose from:

As you can see, pregnancy, marital status, race, disability, age, sex, gender are all issues that you can make a complaint about. But if it is sexual preference, you are on your own.

So I decided to lodge a complaint with humanrights.gov.au about humanrights.gov.au.

Here is a copy of my lodged complaint:

We will see what they say.

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.