It’s been a little while since I blogged, so here’s a letter I wrote in response to this article: We won’t vote for gay marriage even if the party changes its position say Labor right MPs.
I always find that the title “Honourable” rarely applies to people I write angry letters to, so I threw that into this one. Perhaps MPs will realise that the point of it should be to remind them to act in a manner worthy of honour.
To the Honourable Chris Hayes,
You are on the wrong side of the debate on equal marriage rights. You’re also on the wrong side of society (in the minority who disagree with gay marriage). You will judged in future to be in the same class as those in the past arguing that Aboriginals remain classified as fauna and women not receive the vote as they have duties in the kitchen to attend to. Do you really want to be in that category of ignorant human beings publicly voicing their support for discrimination.Make no mistake: this law will change like race and gender inequality was thrown out in the past – you are just making a fool out of yourself in the meantime. I would have thought someone with your background in workplace relations and the like would be well aware of the discrimination laws and how they can be directly and indirectly unfair.
I wonder if you would be so quick to announce you support inequality if you substituted race for someone’s sexuality. The SMH quoted you as saying “‘You do believe in certain things. I can’t apologise for my beliefs,”
(from http://www.smh.com.au/national/we-wont-vote-for-gay-marriage-even-if-party-changes-its-position-say-labor-right-mps-20111130-1o766.html )You do believe in certain things: but you’re like a racist boasting about how you think black people shouldn’t be allowed to marry outside their race. It’s nothing to be proud of and you should be apologising for your poor judgement.
No one picks their sexuality Mr Hayes, but they do pick whether to be an ignorant, prejudiced homophobic fool.
Do you even know anyone who is gay? Chances are with your views they have kept it a private matter around you if you’ve made your views known in the past. If you weren’t espousing such a small minded view you might find that gay people are just like straight people. Just like when racists actually get around to getting to know people of a different skin colour they find that they were just ignorant in the extreme: you are no different to the racist who has never bothered to take the time to know a person of different skin colour.
As a heterosexual with some sense of fairness I’m not about to dictate that someone else should have special discrimination against them because of their sexuality.It actually makes me cringe when I attend weddings and they get to the part “Australian law defines marriage as between a man and a woman” because I think it is absolutely unnecessary.
Quite how someone else’s marriage affects you is beyond me or perhaps you are worried you’ll have no more excuses and will promptly find yourself married to another male if this bit of discriminatory legislation is fixed?Anyhow, I’d urge you to reconsider the type of view you have that is on the same side as the racists and the misogynists who choose to discriminate on something which a person has no choice whatsoever. By all means discriminate against people with chosen views, but if you can’t in good conscience replace “gay” with “mixed race” then that’s a sign your views are rather repulsive. That you are a member of the ALP and so woefully ignorant of the need for equality to remove injustice makes me think that you might be better off in another party. I believe the Christian Democrats might have a suitably backward ideology that is more of a fit?
So unlike you, I believe in equality and I think you should apologise for your beliefs. Just as racists and sexist people should apologise and learn some ethics.
You’ve declared yourself to be in bad company Mr Hayes, I suggest you lift yourself away from such a repugnant mob and carry yourself and your views to a level that the “The Honourable” out the front of your title should indicate. “To the homophobic Chris Hayes” would be more accurate at the moment.
regards,
Nathan Lee
