You can't beat stupid.....

Here we go again. In an article in the News-Mail, Rob Messenger is spruiking the legislation he wants to introduce after the next election to repeal the Civil Partnerships Bill that was passed in November.

He states in the article that it will "give all elected representatives an opportunity to right a wrong".

Whose wrong are we talking about, Rob? I don't want to get personal, but clearly that's the way it has to be, because you know, we're talking about personal lives here. Lives of people you've never met, and haven't had the balls to actually talk to about this issue.

You want to preserve the sanctity of marriage, you say? How about out-lawing no-fault divorce? Wouldn't that serve to preserve the sanctity of marriage more than not allowing a small number of the population to access the same rights you have?

He also says "this reform is not about politics, it's about equality". Damn straight it is Rob. So explain, if you will, how repealing the Civil Partnership Bill will promote equality? The Bill allows for same-sex as well as opposite-sex couples to access it, so there's no discrimination there. In fact, you could access it if you didnt, oh, I don't know, want to do something silly like get married again, after getting divorced?

But enough about you, Rob, because what I really want to take to task is the comments that inevitably pop up on these types of articles. I truly thought I'd seen it all (and commented on it all as well), but no. Stupid has stooped to a new low.

This from kitwalker05:

"Homosexuals die at around the age of 40, with or without aids",

and this

"homosexuals have more health issues and therefore put a higher burden on the health system".

So very glad I was informed of this fact. I can now make sure I do everything on my bucket list over the next four years, since that's about all I have left on this earth. I mean, come on. You're shitting me, right? Where does this stuff even come from?

Also, by kitwalker05's logic, I've clearly been a bigger burden on the health system over my 36 years than any of my similar-aged heterosexual friends and family. Lucky, then, that I don't get the same tax concessions as those in heterosexual marriages to pay for my excess usage of the health system.

This from noelbowman:

"I do not give a stuff how anyone else chooses to live their PRIVATE LIFE but let it be PRIVATE" (his emphasis not mine), and then "this attempt to politically hijack the ceremony and its meaning is a bloody disgrace" however "I do not want to interfere with anyone else's life so get out of mine!" (again, his emphasis not mine)

Ummm.... ? So it's not ok that I be allowed to access rights and responsibilities that you have, because that would be impinging on your rights somehow, but you can stop me from accessing them, because, well YOU don't think I should. You're not interfering in my life at all, noelbowman, not one little bit.

I don't give a toss about your marriage. I give a toss about mine. Your relationship with your wife has nothing to do with my relationship with mine. 

You can't ask that I don't impinge on your rights without impinging on mine in the process. So how about this - I get the right to marry my partner, and you get to keep your right to stay married to your wife? Because that's how it would work, noelbowman. If I get to walk down the aisle with my partner and say I do and live happily ever after, it doesn't mean that you can't. You don't lose any of your rights by giving the same ones to me.

If the thought of two women, or two men, marrying each other makes you feel sick or icky then I have two things to say to you:

1. You're definitely not gay, and
2. You think way too much about those of us on the other side of the fence.

Rubyred is concerned about the children:

"Can you even imagine what it must be like as a child to not have a mother and a father but to live with two men or two women? What will happen to him or her at school?"

I applaud your concern, Rubyred, but I ask you, do you know what that situation's like? How about I give you an example of a young man who was brought up by two women?  Bullying, unfortunately, is a fact of life, particularly in childhood, and particularly at school. Kids don't understand that "different" doesn't necessarily mean "bad". It's up to us, as adults, to tell them and show them the difference.

Look, I could go on about a lot of other things here, but I've already dealt with them in other posts.

How about lets deal in some facts now?

Civil partnerships are open to any (eligible) couple who either can't or don't want to get married, so it's not a "gay" thing.

Civil partnerships give us a way to register our relationship from the start, rather than have to prove it existed after the fact.

Existing rights are not going to change. If you are currently married, you will not be required to register a civil partnership because the legislation clearly states that the Federal Marriage Act trumps the Qld Civil Partnerships Act. There are no further rights being conferred onto gay couples that heterosexual couples don't already have.

Gays and lesbians are already parents - have been for a long time. That's not going to change. There's not going to be an explosion of gays and lesbians becoming parents because we'd be able to get married, or enter into a civil partnership.

Gay parents do not have gay babies. Heterosexual parents have gay babies. How do I know? My parents are heterosexual and have been happily married for 36 years, and they had me. They also had two heterosexual daughters and a heterosexual son.

Finally, being gay is a trait we are born with. It's not a trait that dictates my life, and it's not something that should be a big deal. It's made into a big deal by people who choose to differentiate me from them because of it.

I'm proud of who I am - not as a lesbian, but as a person. It's disheartening to think that no matter how much I contribute to my family, community and society in general, all that good can be overlooked by people who can't see past the only thing that makes me different.

It's disappointing that no matter how good my relationship is with my partner, or how much I love her, it's not good enough to be recognised by my state or my country.

Would you like to hear any of your own comments said about your son or your daughter, your brother, sister or granchildren? Would you be happy for them to be excluded from accessing the same rights you have, simply because they're different from you?  

Next time you make comments such as the ones above, think about who you could be talking about and how it may affect them.