Thanks to the world of facebook I’ve just stumbled across this video put together by a gay person who was, along with several others, thrown out of Paddy’s Bar in Albury, southern New South Wales. Officially the bouncer said it was because they were intoxicated. The only problem is that none of them were. The bouncer said it wasn’t his decision and he knew they weren’t drunk but it came from management.
Sometimes it’s easy to believe that massive progress has been made, when you live in a city like Sydney. Unfortunately, stories like this prove that there is a long way to go.
Meet Jason Akermanis. Professional Australian Football League player and newspaper columnist. Jason has chosen this week, Anti Homophobia Week, to write a newspaper column telling all gay players that they should stay in the closet because he doesn’t think AFL is ready to deal with a gay player. He thinks the pressure on the first player to do so would “Tear the fabric” of the club.
He also went on to say that he doesn’t think it’s a safe environment to come out as it would make the other players in the team uncomfortable in the showers. “Akers” said that the players are at the height of masculinity and along with that comes homophobia.
Thankfully, another high profile player and a top coach have disputed his statements saying that they didn’t think anyone on their team would have a problem with a gay colleague.
When Gregory and Jonathan entered Crate and Barrel’s ultimate wedding competition they were just after a bit of help towards achieving their perfect wedding, which for them consists of friends, family and fun. The competition is voted by the public (go and vote to show support) through the website for the competition. The guys are not the only same sex couple in the running and the competition was always open to everyone, gay couples included.
Their popularity with voters has obviously ruffled some feathers among straight people who either don’t approve or feel that they perhaps are being done out of their ultimate wedding. The couple have been subjected to horrible remarks on the site but refuse to step down from the competition. Read the full article here.
A largely Muslim football team has been kicked out of a Paris football league because they made discriminatory remarks about and refused to play a gay team, citing “Our convictions are stronger than a game of football.”
When gay actors and politicians and other public figures come out and vocally stand up for equality and rights it’s a great thing, and we certainly need more of it to raise our profile and prove that we really are your “everyman” and not just the street parades, drugs, parties and leather pants missing the arse out of them. But what we really need are more people like Brendon Ayanbadejo.
Brendon plays NFL in the U.S. and is straight. In my understanding, the NFL is about as blokey and homophobic as most football codes with only a handfull of players coming out after retirement when the prospect of losing multi million dollar endorsements is gone. So for a player to come out and very publicly support gay marriage equality is so important for our cause. We need more people who don’t stand to gain anything from supporting us to prove that it’s a basic human right for gay men and women to be treated as equals.
Brendon recently said on the topic “We will look back in 10, 20, 30 years and be amazed that gays and lesbians did not have the same rights as everyone else…If Britney Spears can party it up in Vegas with one of her boys and go get married on a whim and annul her marriage the next day, why can’t a loving same-sex couple tie the knot? How could our society grant more rights to a heterosexual one-night-stand wedding in Vegas than a gay couple that has been together for three, five, 10 years of true love? The divorce rate in America is currently 50 percent. I am willing to bet that same-sex marriages have a higher success rate than heterosexual marriages.”
So simply but effectively put. Thanks to you Brendon! We need more public figures like you.
This kid is an inspiration. A 9 year old is organising a rally for marriage equality in the U.S. after hearing that some gay people in his neighbourhood couldn’t marry and hearing anti-gay slurs in the school yard. The world needs more people like this kid.
In these times where Christian fundamentalism and religious bigotry are leaving their mark, I think it’s very important that shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Brothers and Sisters are showing regular guys, being gay and god forbid even kissing. I think the conservative parts of America and Australia and other countries around the world need to see stuff like this to prove that gay men are everywhere, and in every walk of life. And personally, even though this is scripted television, I’m a sucker for a romance.
I’d heard about this from reading blogs but just watched this report in full. It’s so sad that people still use the word “sissy” and trot out that old line, it’s Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve. The fact that the woman called the Emergency Services hotline because two guys were kissing shows remarkable ignorance and bigotry but I guess on a positive note it shows that Baltimore was having a quiet crime day. Perhaps the most disturbing part for me was the guy who said he believes in carrying a gun and that people should be “put down”.
