Image: Equal Love Melbourne's Nic McAtamney
AUSTRALIAN Marriage Equality spokesperson Rodney Croome recently launched an unsubtle attack on rallies held by Equal Love and more strangely the language of equality used by the broader campaign. According to Croome, the word “equality” is too confrontational, we need to call it “marriage fairness” so as not to alienate conservatives.
Equal Love is a little perplexed about the motivations here but more alarming is why Croome would be doing the conservatives work for them. We are on the same side here. We all want marriage equality.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott on the other hand has made it quite clear he doesn’t want marriage equality. As a senior Howard Government Minister he voted in the amendment to the federal marriage, limiting marriage to a man and woman. Almost 10 years later he fought to overturn the ACT government’s same sex marriage laws.
Thus we are a little confused by Croome’s recent article in the Star Observer where he lays blame on the activists for why we don’t have ‘Marriage Fairness’ and identifies Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party as the campaign’s allies. Divide and conquer is a classic strategy used against the oppressed, we need to stand together and not do Abbott’s work for him.
Our symbol is the rainbow – our community has always been diverse both in identities and politics. There has always had a loud and proud arm and a more quiet and polite stream, from the Mattachine Society to Gay Liberation. These strategies are not mutually exclusive.
What does not help though, is when one arm insists the other be quiet. As the ACT UP slogan went “Silence = Death.” From Stonewall to HIV and AIDS crisis, a public campaign of anger and pride has always taken our struggle out of the closet and put our issues on the political map.
Equal Love is a community group that endeavours to highlight the overwhelming public support that exists for equal rights through mass action and in so doing pressure those responsible for maintaining discrimination to change the law. There are two key reasons we believe this is an important strategy to pursue.
The most obvious is that together we are stronger. A visual display of community outrage over the issue emboldens those who want change, those who are suffering with homophobia and helps challenge wider layers of people to think about the issue. Our demonstrations have been the largest and most enduring queer political actions in Australia in many years. It is the endless public outcry on this issue that creates a space for the lobbying work Australian Marriage Equality do.
What is also important about political rallies is that they don’t just make resistance a private personal action but build community and connectedness. Thus was the power of Stonewall to remind people they are not alone in the struggle. After every rally, we receive messages from attendees on how good the rallies made them feel – that they are not alone. This is particularly important for young people, who make up a large portion of attendees and many travelling to the major cities from often detached rural communities.
What draws in young people and many others who come to our rallies is not necessarily a desire to get married tomorrow, but their experiences of broader discrimination that we are all too familiar with. Equal Love therefore believes it is important not to throw our pride under the bus to try to get marriage rights over the line through backroom deals alone. It is ‘marriage equality’ and we should not feel ashamed to declare our right to be equal, nor should we leave the transgendered and intersex community out in the cold, our goal is the repeal of the amendment to the Marriage Act in 2004, and the adoption of marriage laws that do not discriminate on the basis of gender, sex or sexuality.
There is not just one way to achieve this. The size and diversity of the equal marriage campaign has indeed been its strength. The campaign has been one of the most resilient and sustained in Australian politics. As such, it has opened up space for broader issues of homophobia and transphobia to be talked about in the mainstream media, schools and workplaces. Marriage equality won on the back of a loud public campaign that entrenches our victory more solidly and better places us to go forward to fight around other issues of discrimination, it is a more powerful moral victory against homophobia than winning it through polite lobbying alone. The demand for silence, fewer rallies or for us to rely on the ‘…Coalition politician’s belief in fairness or family…’ will be the death of the issue as an important public one. Only sustained pressure on any government in power, which is both public and private will make them change their position.
Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of the Howard government’s amendment to the Marriage Act. 10 years too long and Howard’s protégé should not go unchallenged.
Equal Love is organising rallies on Saturday May 17 and Saturday August 16, in line with International Day Against Homophobia and the anniversary of the marriage ban respectively. We welcome all parties, organisations and individuals who unashamedly support marriage equality to help us organise them.
Labelling Rodney Croome a “conservative” is way funny because I remember, decades ago, interviewing a Tasmanian MP who considered him a loud radical and they wanted to listen to the more “middle” group of tame, older, polite gay men. What it boils down to is that everyone has a right to be angry but nobody has a right to espouse hate or violence. “Fuck Tony Abbott” in a literal sense is a call to rape him. While Rodney’s “Marriage Fairness” is way to polite, the socialist equivalent is way to violent and nasty. We all own our oppression and have a right to be heard. If you wave a placard saying “Fuck Tony Abbott” or want to make Marriage Equality “Marriage Fairness” then you are not hearing my voice and you make me feel invisible and powerless. All the stakeholders need to recognise it is shared platform and you should put the subset of your agenda out there that has consensus support. Let discussion ferment and boil in the community then erupt as a clear, concise and unified message.
Nicholas McAtamney distorts my position instead of replying to my concerns. AME has always backed rallies as an important way to show mass support for marriage equality and to create a sense of common purpose among its supporters. If anything my personal support for such action is even stronger. I can’t count how many LGBTI human rights demonstrations I have helped organise, spoken at, waved flags during and been arrested for participating in. Rallies were never my concern. My concern is the use of marriage equality rallies to pursue a broader anti-government agenda using hatred and abuse as the main weapons of attack. It is this which divides marriage equality supporters, not anything I have said.
I am not the only one concerned about this. I note that long-time socialist activist, John Passant, has resigned from the Socialist Alternative (the group which has come to dominate some Equal Love branches in recent times) precisely because of the kind of actions I have taken issue with. He has condemned them as “juvenile” and “mindless”, and “not serious political engagement”. If dedicated radicals are turned off by what has been happening, what hope is there of attracting broader support?
In order to maintain cohesion within the marriage equality movement my article very deliberately avoided referring to Equal Love. It has done great work over the years and I don’t want to tar it with the actions of a few. But there will come a point when it has to face the fact that numbers at its rallies are static or dwindling and come up with alternative ways forward. My article suggested a few of these. I’m sorry Nicholas didn’t feel able to engage with these suggestions. For the sake of Equal Love, and marriage equality generally, I hope there are others who will.
Stuff the rallies!! If we want to be treated like everyone else we shouldn’t have to have a damn parade for it! Nor a bloomin rainbow fag flag! We are normal like everyone else and should be treated that way. We shouldn’t need a stupid parade to flaunt it!!!! You want to be equal act it!!!!!
After my experiences at equal love rallies and the socialist element that persist there i will not return. As has been stated by several people the viciousness and hatred that comes from elements of these rallies is not what is needed. Common ground and bringing in the undecided to see our view point. Mr McAtamney points out that the rallies should ‘build community and connectedness’ This is not possible with the action of some in the rallies. When this has some sort of change i may again attend. Until then i will continue to voice my digust to my elected representatives at the current situation hoping they can see my view.
THANK YOU for this article Nicholas. It’s always “my way or the highway” with conservatives. OK, if Rodney Croome wants to follow the lobbying path, good luck and who’s stoppin’ ya? But why should that result in fury that literally thousands of other people have a different idea about how to fight for equal rights. Equal Love rocks and I hope the rallies in 2014 are the biggest ever.
These comparisons to ACT UP are a little off. The community at large isn’t ignorant, or afraid, or silent about marriage equality. Nobody is (directly) dying of marriage inequality. The circumstances aren’t comparable at all, between the fights of decades ago and the fights of now. All the comparison comes across as is some entitled hobbyist activists looking for an excuse to pick a fight with someone.
Marriage is a conservative act. It’s a family act. All the activist aggression does is alienate the hearts and minds we need to win, and the families we need to have feel welcome at rallies. Not some juvenile university politics game.
People are dying every day of homophobia, though, and having a homophobic law about relationships entrenched at the highest level helps to sustain a social environment in which young queers are bullied and suffer depression to a much higher level. So a victory for equal marriage rights (and the collective strength in identity of fighting for them) would have an effect on LGBTIQ health.
Those in opposition to Croome’s article don’t really seem to understand what he was talking about, nor have any strategic idea on how to achieve marriage equality. Attacking “conservatives” is not going to get us anywhere. Attacking “progressives” is not going to get us anywhere. We need to all work together – if we want love and equality, we need to see those against us as equal too.
To analogise it, if there were 10 people making the decision, three might be strongly for marriage equality, three against, and four undecided. If the three who are for it start telling people to “fuck off”, where do you think those who are undecided will go? You attract more flies with honey than vinegar. We need to ditch these angry messages and treat politicians like humans so that they’ll work with us. This issue is mainstream and normal, but we’re acting like
Great article Nicholas! Pretty much agree with everything you wrote. It’s about time conservatives like Rodney Croome stopped pretending he speaks for the whole community when he doesn’t. And its time Croome stops trying to split the campaign and attacking other dedicated activists, in order to push his own righwing agenda, which is nothing less than capitulation to homophobes like Abbott.
Great article Nicholas. Winning marriage equality should be seen as just the start of our struggle to end homophobia and transphobia. Marriage equality should not be seen as an end point if and when we achieve it. That’s why the Equal Love rallies are so important. They’re great at getting young people active and fighting against homophobia. This is the point Rodney Croome fails to understand or acknowledge.
Everyone should be coming to the rallies in 2014 and making them huge, as they can and should be.
The LGBTI movement was asleep before Equal Love came along and made tens of thousands of people new and outspoken advocates for equal rights. Maybe Croome belongs with the Liberals.
Top article. Seriously SICK of conservatives like Croome posturing as if he singularly speaks for all LGBTI people. Out of the closets and into the streets!
But marriage is a conservative institution. We have to don our twin-set and pearls and mind our Ps and Qs when asking the nice government to marry us.
It seems to me that those with a ‘storm the barricades’ attitude would be demanding the Marriage Act be overturned. If we’re all equal then social markers like marriage should be irrelevant. That’s the anti-conservative view. Or at least it used to be.
Great article. Equal Love has done a brilliant job for so many years now, to its absolute credit. Croome doesn’t speak for me. I’ll be at the next demo, as always, rain hail or shine (and probably shouting “fuck tony abbott”).
Equal Love seem somewhat confused over what people are disagreeing with.
We’re not disagreeing with the cries for “equality”. We’re disagreeing with the cries of “Fuck Tony Abbott”, of the implied death threats (nooses around badly drawn politicians), and all the other messages of hate that are coming out of Equal Love.
Ditch the parasitic and toxic messages being spewed like unfettered vitriol from the socialists that have infested Equal Love, and we’ll start supporting it again. Equal Love is anything but equal – people who criticise the socialist dictatorship of the movement are ostracised, attacked, or expelled. For so called proponents of equality, many of us see utter hypocrisy.
Until then, we’ll support marriage equality in other ways that don’t compromise our ideals.