A dear friend emailed me last night. A gay man, he’s a passionate advocate for LGBTIQ health, equal rights and same-sex marriage. When there’s a letter to be written, a submission to be made, a politician to be educated, a hearing to attend, a seminar to be planned, a rally to be organised or a meeting to be convened, my friend is there – ‘pink jackboots’ and all – putting in 200 per cent to make a difference. He’s a firecracker.
But last night, his mood was low as he wrote that he was stepping back – for a while at least – for the sake of his ‘mental health and well-being’. I knew he was burning out – I’ve been worried about him for a while now. But, the final straw came this week when, leading yet another gallant charge for equality, he paused to look behind him – and found there was no-one there. His rainbow army had somehow fizzled away – too busy, too tired, too distracted, too apathetic to help him fight for their rights. He is hurt, bewildered and, frankly, bereft.
It’s not a problem confined to the gay community, of course. Apathy is the curse of our nation. But, it’s particularly sad to see it in a community which has so much to gain and is so close to getting there.
Of course, the LGBTIQ community has done some amazing work over the past few years – especially in the area of marriage equality. Remember how excited we all were when, after the senate called for submissions on marriage equality, 46,400 of the 79,200 submissions received argued in favour of same-sex marriage?
But, as my friend pointed out at the time, this represents only a small percentage of the number of LGBTIQ people in Australia – and even less if you count their families and friends!
A survey conducted in 2001-2002 found that 1.6 per cent of Australian men identify as gay and 0.8 per cent of Australian women as lesbian. A smaller percentage of men and a larger percentage of women identify as bisexual. It seems likely this study represents the bare minimum of Australian homosexuality with 8.6 per cent of men and 15.1 per cent of women admitting to at least a degree of same-sex attraction. But let’s take the conservative road and do a little crude number crunching.
According to the last census, Australia has 11.2 million females and 11.1 million males. If the figures from 2001-2002 still hold, that means our population includes at least 89,600 lesbians and 177,600 gay men. So, the bare minimum number of single-gender attracted homosexuals in Australia is 267,200. Even assuming that every single senate submission supporting marriage equality was written by one of this cohort – (clearly not the case!) – that’s a bare 17 per cent who bothered to stand up for their own rights. In reality, the figure is much, much smaller.
How much further ahead would we be today if the Senate had received submissions from even half the LGBTIQ community, their family and friends? Instead of 46,400, they may have had to deal with half a million to a million supportive submissions. That would not have been so easily voted down!
Now, let me just pause a moment here for a quick word to any fundamentalists and homophobic bigots who may be skulking through this article looking for some salacious statistic to cherry-pick; BACK OFF! Your mob is no better. With ‘the future of marriage’ at stake and civilisation as we know it about to crumble and despite a number of well-funded, high profile campaigns from conservative churches and the Australian Christian lobby, your apathetic lot managed less submissions than ‘teh gays’! So don’t go using this article to argue the LGBTIQ community don’t want marriage equality or I will use exactly the same argument to insist that your side don’t much care whether homosexuals are allowed to marry or not.
The point is that people – gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, black, white or brindle, theist or atheist, are generally apathetic. It’s not that we don’t care, it’s just that we seldom care to do anything about it. That’s why we have Julia Gillard for a Prime Minister, Tony Abbott for an opposition leader, and Alan Jones still on air!
Let me make it clear – I’m not arguing that the gay community is unusually apathetic; they’re probably about as apathetic as the rest of us. The problem is, given the urgent and pressing need for issues of LGBTIQ equality and discrimination to be addressed, and the shocking human cost of the failure to do so, rainbow apathy is something our communities (gay and straight) simply can’t afford.
Considering the passage of California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage, blogger, Jonathan Beitel laments:
In my time dealing with gay rights activism apathy is consistently the largest monster I’ve come up against, worrying me far more than organized religious institutions possibly ever could. The repeated mantra of ‘hey, we’ll get marriage eventually, what’s the fight over!’ rings in my ears even today. It gets difficult trying to explain that in civil rights struggles, the minority doesn’t get tossed equality ‘eventually’, it happens after unrelenting demands for it. Yet so many in the world are content to let others fight the battle for them and lift no finger of their own.
(And, again, for the lurkers, let me point out that, speaking on the same issue, Catholic Bishop Thomas J Tobin, castigated Catholics for their ‘abysmal’ apathy in opposing those who are ‘fiercely determined’ to ‘impose homosexual marriage’. )
Here in Queensland, the indomitable Shelley Argent of PFlag confronted rainbow apathy as she helped lead the charge for Civil Partnerships legislation. We got there, but I suspect that, at the end of it, Shelley was as wrung out and burned out as my friend who’s just temporarily thrown in his rainbow-hued towel.
It’s so easy to think that your single letter, email or phone call won’t make any difference anyway. It’s easy to think it’s a waste of time; that nothing will change. It’s easy to find excuses not to join the campaign, the rally, the march or the lobby group. It’s easy to think that your $50 donation won’t make or break the campaign. It’s too easy to let someone else fight your battles for you. And it’s so comforting to blithely believe that somehow – without you exerting any effort whatsoever – things will just magically turn out all right.
I recently wrote a scathing attack on a local politician who failed to support same-sex marriage. One of his gay constituents commented on my blog, assuring me, “We have faith that karma will take its course.”
Karma? Karma???? Really???? With barely controlled frustration I replied:
… sitting around waiting for karma to hit is hardly a practical solution to the problem … It’s time to fight for a better candidate, not wait for karma!
As a straight woman speaking to an LGBTIQ audience, I’m aware I may be pushing my luck with this article. But, I’m not saying anything new here. Leading gay-rights activist, Rodney Croome, says his one message to young people is:
Don’t let negativity shake your sense of purpose – though it does happen to us all. Our biggest enemy isn’t hate crimes or homophobia … Our biggest enemy is apathy, bitterness and cynicism.
Gay rights and marriage equality are only inevitable if everyone – and I mean everyone – maintains the rage. Now that the bills in parliament, the senate and Tasmania’s legislative council have been defeated, now that there’s an evangelistic LNP government in Queensland, now that we are absolutely certain that Julia Gillard will not budge on her irrational opposition to same-sex marriage, it would be easy to return to normal and leave it to the likes of Argent, Croome and Alex Greenwich to keep fighting on because, after all, that’s what they DO, isn’t it?
Well, it’s what my friend did, too. But, he found that without some foot-soldiers behind him, it just got too hard, too discouraging, and too damn lonely. So, I beg of you, next time you get an email saying, “I need a hand with this … ” stop and consider that this is someone fighting for your rights, your welfare, your benefit – and get off your arse and give them a hand.
And, if your own self-interest is not enough to motivate you, consider that they’re fighting for the rights, welfare and benefit of LGBTIQ youth who really need to know they have a whole community in there, pink jackboots and all, fighting for them – not just a few lonely, burnt out voices in the wilderness.
So to hell with rainbow apathy. Let’s get behind our rainbow warriors and maintain the rage.
Chrys Stevenson
It’s hard to feel like a one-man marching band. That’s what it feels like being active for gay rights here in Gladstone. I rail, rant, talk to the media, blog etc, but I never seem to attract local people to stand with me.
It sometimes feels like speaking into the void. It’s sometimes depressing. Then I remember to don my Pride(tm) sculpted rainbow breastplate, skip along and sing “follow the yellow brick road”. But it takes energy to be that forcefully cheerful. Good on your friend for knowing to throw in the towel. Put him in touch with me – I’ll march right alongside him. 🙂
Face it Chys its not that people are apathetic its just that the Majority of the people have no desire to see the definition of marriage changed to suit a noisy minority of homosexual activists.
That said there is nothing to stop any individual setting up house with any other consenting adult of their choice its that which is important not the fact that such liaisons can’t be described in law as a marriage
I feel the same discouragement and loneliness. I would rate cynicism, denial, delusion and downright stupidity as culprits also. I can only lead by example and continue to be proactive. But geez it’s frustrating at times.
WOW – So True!!!
The fight for equality is a numbers game. In an ideal world politicians would just do the right thing. Some do, but many will only support reforms for equality if there are votes in it for them. Sadly even this is distorted and over-represented by the militant opponents of equality who lobby with such vigor and in numbers usually far greater than we ever do.
For us to gain equality we need to realise that clicking Like on a Facebook post alone will not bring about change.
People need to pull their fucking finger out and actually DO Something – contacting their MP is a good start!!
What a wonderful story…
THANK YOU BOTH for all your hard work..
I’m One person who will walk beside you both..
Love and Light
Don Balfour
So true … your article hits home on many levels. Extremely insightful AND inspiring. Makes me look at myself and evaluate my efforts towards marriage equality… could/should I have done more. Thank you to the afore mentioned people who put in such a valiant effort on our behalf… and a special hug to a wonderful man who I met only this year in a park in Cleveland, for changing me from an ‘arse’ sitter to a more pro-active individual. Lily Tomlin comes to mind. I hope he feels better soon. xx
It is called “Protest Fatigue”. When we had the first Marriage Equality national day of action in 2005 we voted to make it an annual event in August every year to mark the anniversary of the marriage ban. But somewhere along the road it has become an every other week protest movement. The problem with this is that ordinary people get ‘protest fatigue’ and eventually drop off the scene.
Hi Chris,
having to contend with the pronouncements of dim bulbs like Iain Hall doesn’t help. He defines people who are trying to get out from under an oppressors thumb as “noisy minority of homosexual activists”. He doesn’t realise that any oppressed minority can be characterised this way. He doesn’t know or is in denial about the fact that the clear majority of Australians agree with them about this issue, even the majority of christians agree with them.
A problem is that Australia has shut down most avenues for deliberative democracy, which is why it is possible for a vociferous and rigid thinking minority to oppress another minority using the power of the government. If Australia at least had a separation of church and state we would be able to knock this particular issue on the head.
So people go the the internet, and they declare themselves as wanting to change things. They have no avenue to push for change other than at election time, when the candidates they are faced with are unified in disagreement with the public they are meant to represent. That’s where the apathy comes from. When a group starts an organisation to do something, and they have some knowledge about how to lobby and who to lobby, and how to organise those that want to contribute, it helps.
Why is a religiously constructed institution (i.e. Marriage) a human right???
In fact, why is a religious construct institutionalised by state legislation at all???
Scott:
It is a good question, but marriage isn’t a religiously constructed insitution — as much as birth is not and death is not.
You may wonder why I make a curious link to life, and death, but there is a tenable one.
You see, religious trappings were injected into those two events with the historicity of birth and death records — and the associated christenings and funerals — being the domain of the churches until the administration of such records was done by the state.
And, arguably, births and deaths happened without formal records long before that.
And marriage is the same. Long before civilian law, and religious lore, marriages were formed between individuals.
So the church comes up with some fancy-schmancy ceremony for it — the wedding vow. Is that no different to a christening or a last rite?
But, marriage has never been a religious institution in Australia. It has always been civilian law (under British law since settlement, and Australian law since Federation). Of course, before the arrival of invading white people in the 18th century, I’m sure that indigenous marriage was a matter of tribal law, not religious observation.
Marriage needs a right holy ‘divorce’. Civilian law must be equally extended, and let silly churches and synagogues and mosques choose which exclusive ‘wedding ceremonies’ they’d like.
Personally, being areligious, I don’t really care what silly people do in the privacy of their pew. Let them have their exclusive religious wedding club, I have no desire to partake in that.
But civilian law? You bet I do.
Rod
Firstly let me say, your opening point is flawed.
Birth and Death don’t exist as the result of a social construct – they are 100% the result of a naturally occurring physiological phenomena we are all born we will all die. Marriage however, is not naturally occuring and would not exist, at all, if not for the social construct. Your link in not tenable – it’s illogical!
Marriage as common law describes it, (one man, one woman for life) bears no resemblance to nature! Marriage is not a natural part of this world! Death and birth did indeed exist before humans made religious constructs to explain them, but, marriage (at least not the mutually chosen monogamous relationship it is defined as today) did not exist before Judeo-Christian religion invented it! Marriage is not a natural function, sex is, but marriage isn’t! Marriage was, is, and remains nothing more than a social contract for exclusive sex privileges, producing offspring, and the mutual sharing of resources. Marriage is not an old idea, it’s not even a normal idea within the animal kingdom, so the idea that marriage is somehow “natural” like death and birth is just wrong!
There is no tenable link!
The vast proportion of animals on the planet do not have a stable, committed, partnership for life, humans never did either, monogamous relationships only evolved in the last 2500 years. Marriage as an social institution evolved from human territorial instincts into female bond slavery (usually polygamous), which was later rejected by some humans on socio-religious constructed grounds, developed into religious lore, and then integrated into state law through the political/religious power monopoly that was the Anglican Church around 500 years ago.
Our definition of marriage was never in Australia’s state laws until John Howard introduced it to the marriage act! The definition came from case law in Britain, from a judge’s condemnation of, guess what, polygamy.
You said:
“Long before civilian law, and religious lore, marriages were formed between individuals”
Rubbish! The truth is!
Long before civilian law, and religious lore, women were sold into sexual and domestic servitude to men.
Marriage is not and has never been “naturally occurring”, it was invented!
So in reality:
“Marriage equity” has nothing to do with actual equity before the law!
Equity before the law would abolish the Marriage Act altogether, not extends it’s polyamorous discriminating powers by including another group of people who value monogamous relationships! Marriage is fundamentally discriminatory, FULL STOP
Marriage is the last remnant of the British theocracy started by Henry VIII completely integrating church and state headship in it’s monarch. It should, like every other sovereign act of the old theocratic monarchy, be completely dissolved!
Maariage is a civil institution. The vast majority of Australians marry outside the church. Equality is a human right. Churches do not have to marry gay couples but their objection should have no bearing on equal access to civil ceremonies.