To those posting words of kindness and support I can only assume you are the more intelligent human beings who were actually able to UNDERSTAND the issues at hand. It appears all those other haters have the intelligence of small gnats (sorry if you don’t understand that haters, look it up!)

To you Andrew, stand strong and do have a merry christmas. I hope that somewhere someday the person who this battle does end up helping will let you know it helped, and that you did not recieve all the hate and abuse for nothing.

IDK

George

The IP address of the homohater ‘Aussie Male’ resolves to a TELSTRA Bigpond account in QLD:

nslookup
Name: CPE-121-222-245-226.qld.bigpond.net.au
Address: 121.222.245.226

The government is completely right in what they are doing, by denying you sick idiots any rights whatsoever will help society become a lot more safe and civil place. Sometimes I do actually feel sorry for you queer cunts that your genes are so fucked up that you turned out the way you have. I just hope they find an antidote for your sickness or better still immunisation for what you poor fuckwits have…..

Take me for example…i suffer from depression, and because of that I was fired from my job because they didnt think i could perform my job properly anymore.

due to a whole heap of different workplace laws, theres nothing i can do – no unfair dismissal, nothing like that. i just had to cop it on the chin and move on. and i did! sure, i was pissed off for quite a while, but i accepted the fact that this world is full of jerk offs and sometimes youve gotta deal with the shit they deal out.

and on the marriage side of things…whats the big deal? if youve got a partner that you care about and they care about you, whats the point of having a piece of paper that says ‘legally joined’? hell, id hate to get married personally. luckily my girlfriend feels the same way.

one last thing, you say that the ad is not worthy of a Human Rights and Equality Opportunity Commission Complaint, so why do you want to make one, and why so upset that you cant?

believe me dude it’d be great if this whole thing wasn’t an issue. unfortunately, theres always gonna be ignorance in this world, theres always gonna be some morons who say gay marriage is wrong. if you want to be free of criticism for your sexual preferences, youd have to stay in the closet.

So anyway this guy raises an issue about the potential political implications of this sublime sense of humour, and learns that in Australia in 2008, gays and lesbians do not enjoy the same levels of protection against discrimination as other groups. This, in my view, is a bit of a scoop, and deserves to be publicly debated.

Unfortunately, a whole nation unites to silence this guy by calling him queen, princess, wanker, idiot, knob…. This is not because Australians in 2008 suffer from illiteracy. Rather, it is because Australians, in 2008, are still latently homophobic. As soon as a gay activist raises an issue, it’s “shut the f**k up and get a life”.

I’d also like to point out to all those neo-con gays who seem to enthusiastically side with the homophobic bogans who engage in derogatory name calling, that it is YOU who take us 20 years back. It is YOU, not Andrew, who should shut the f**k up and get a life. You’re the conformist “we’re just like everyone else” gays who stifle social progress by refusing to acknowledge that this is your battle too. It is YOU that do not deserve to be gay. You should be ashamed of yourselves, because you have no balls, you have no courage to stand up for us. You have the gay activists of the Stonewall riots and of the Pride movement to thank for the rights you now enjoy.

It is people like Andrew who make a difference, who dare to raise issues publicly and to point out the deficiencies in our legal system. The rest of you mainstream gays, go back to your clubs, your dance parties, your fitness firsts and gym buddies, and let Andrew fight your battle why don’t you. You’re the judgemental scum of the gay community and with a lack of better words to use because of my sheer frustration, unless you have the guts to join in this battle, then do us all a favour and shut the fuck up.

The Rudd government (with whom I am in no way affiliated, just to be clear) has formed an inquiry into some form of Australian Charter of Rights. It that happens and/or a federal Sexuality Discrimination Bill happens, on top of existing state-based Anti-Discrimination legislation, would those things address the concerns you’ve been raising?

Another part of the equation, in my view, is separating Church & State in Australia ( http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54429760859 ). This is the only way our government and public institutions can hope to fully move forward with fairness for all.

YOU DON’T DESERVE TO BE GAY – YOUR AS BAD AS THE HOMOPHOBES THAT RULE THIS WORLD AND ALWAYS WILL !

My god – a stupid TV commercial, no wonder no agency wanted to deal with your trivial complaint, I think Joe has every right to write what he has, hopefully it will stop imbeciles like yourself making it harder for all gays to live in the community without being discriminated upon.

I am gay and proud of it and also have a sense of humour which you seem to lack, marriage is nothing more than a peace of paper, if you need to have that to have a meaningful relationship, I do feel sorry for you.

Anyway I hope in the future you will think before you act and take into
consideration what your actions may do to other proud gays who love this country and its people.

You don’t deserve to have a website – get a sense of humour first !

In Australia, anti-discrimination law is primarily a state rather than federal matter. Nearly all of the states have very comprehensive anti-discrimination laws in place to protect LGBT people from a wide range of discrimination, not only in employment, but also in the provision of goods and services, education, health care, etc. In many states, including NSW, there are also protections against vilification of gay people (hate speech, etc).

So, the respond to your gym example: if a gym owned were to refuse you admission because of your real or perceived sexual orientation, that would be against the law in NSW. You could easily make a complaint to the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board.

I support a federal law banning sexual orientation discrimination beyond employment, but it would not actually make that much difference in practical terms. The major beneficiaries of such a law would be those dealing with federal agencies who may not always be subject to state anti-discrimination laws.

And again, as I outlined in a previous post, you CAN make a complaint to the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board about the Telstra ad if you so wish.

I am strongly in favour of same-sex marriage, but I don’t see how complaining about the AHRC’s inability to tackle sexual orientation discrimination in the provision of advertising helps the same-sex marriage movement.