Wednesday 24 February 2016

A message for Cory Bernardi

I saw the news online, and made the mistake of reading the comments. My disillusionment in the intelligence of the Australian public made me resemble this woman.


Here's the thing, and I'll admit I'm not a doctor or psychiatrist, but I'm pretty certain you can't catch gay. It's like being Chinese or French - you can't catch it. Either you are, or you aren't. When the new French kid turns up at your school, and they speak French at home, if they lend you a pencil and you take the pencil, you don't suddenly become French when you touch it.

If you're learning Greek or Mandarin at school, and you role play a shop scene, you don't get confused and think you are actually shopping for fruit in a market in Athens.

I would say pretty much all kids in the Drama group are aware that the scenes they're preparing for the school play don't mean they've somehow changed personalities and are now their character.

Given the budget of the School Chaplaincy program is in the $243+ million ballpark, and Safe Schools is $8 million, I find it weird that it is the Safe Schools program that you're worried about re indoctrination. You also seem to miss the point that if it is indoctrination, it's indoctrination on how not to be a bullying, insensitive dick, not how to be gay.

The angry, crazed comments on Facebook were often misspelled, had poor grammar and at times, showed no presentation of logical argument. These were written by products of the Australian school system. If you have a concern with Education, that should be it. Perhaps looking at additional funding for schools is needed to make sure that if you go to an Australian school, you come out at the end with the ability to spell and to write a coherent argument.

Our schools are gravely underfunded and it is the community at large who suffers as a result. The pittance used to run Safe Schools is not the problem. The lack of funding for teaching, equipment, texts and everything else means our national standard is not where it should be. I hope you are prepared to fight for an improvement on funding education, seeing as you've highlighted a national level of ignorance, that can only be fixed at the school level.

(My favorite comment was that 'no red blooded male would tolerate gays'. I live in Sydney so I found this confusing at first. But lets break it down (and I'll use the comment's terminology, as it's amusing me) - There's about 2 billion red blooded males who tolerate gays on the planet. Then there's 'the gays' themselves, who, while I admit I'm not a doctor, I am pretty sure are red blooded and male, So take out the women, and reassess your figures. What I believe the person meant was that there is a small percent of the global population who have issues with the LGBTQI community, either for religious reasons, homophobia or some other reason, possibly because their school didn't help them understand diversity or lacked a Safe Schools program.)


You are free to disagree with my opinion but as always, I will delete any rude comments aimed at me, Cory Bernardi or the Liberal Party in general. Keep it civil and polite. We are better than that.

The petition by the Greens in Support of Safe Schools is here

10 comments:

  1. I can't believe that on the say so of what seems a political minority there has been an inquiry called. Yet how many years of campaigning did it take before the royal commission was called into the catholic church and abuse?

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  2. I couldn't agree more Lydia - you've nailed it.

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  3. Exactly on the money. It horrifies me to read comments aligned with the ridiculous notions expressed by Corgi and the ACL. How can anyone, in this day and age, be so homophobic?

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  4. I said the same thing to Amy but I watched The Project last night and very much enjoyed the segment. I hadn't heard much about the Safe Schools initiative until these past few days and think it sounds great.

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  5. I don't watch the news and live like an ostrich with my head in the sand. I actually had to go and google who Cory Bernardi is! But I don't need to watch the news to know that homosexuality isn't contagious and that everyone has the right to be educated regardless of their sexuality. There's never an excuse for homophobia.

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  6. My only comment is that I shake my head of the intolerance and refusal to understand the minorities. We are all basically human, and that makes us the same, despite what society puts labels and judgements on. I just don't get why some humans have to be arseholes.

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  7. Well said. "You can't catch gay" :) from some of the nasty comments & opinions expressed on this topic I'm glad you can't catch ignorance, intolerance or stupidity either!

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  8. Oh no, never read the comments on that stuff, they're just so depressing!It is a sad state of affairs (I am saying that a lot this week) that our government must demonise such a positive programme. God forbid that we should offer support to vulnerable kids at school. What kind of message does that send? Sheesh...
    Dani @ sand has no home

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  9. I'm glad you have highlighted the chaplaincy program and the difference in funding to start off with. You can't read the comments ever as you can loose all faith in the human race.

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  10. I haven't seen the news online so I'm completely in the dark, but I enjoyed reading this! You can't catch gay. LOL. Loved the speaking French analogy. Whatever article or news item you're referring to, it sounds like you nailed it ...

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