Poster saying ‘stop the fags’ appears in Melbourne
Image: Image: Twitter / @DanLMcG
A Melbourne resident has taken to social media to share an image of a new poster allegedly appearing in the city this morning, that reads ‘stop the fags’.
Twitter user Dan posted the image, claiming it appeared on Heffernan Lane.
“How is this for a unity moment,” he wrote.
The poster features a young man being approached by two people wielding rainbow belts in a menacing fashion.
It also lists ‘statistics’ claiming that 92 per cent of children raised by same-sex parents are abused. It also claims that 51 per cent have depression and that 72 per cent are obese.
Long-time LGBTI rights advocate and just.equal spokesperson, Rodney Croome, said the hate displayed in the posters will shock and disgust the majority of Australians.
“We call upon Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to condemn this vilification and set out the parameters for respectful debate,” he said.
“We have long warned the Government that a plebiscite or postal vote on marriage equality would amplify extremist and hateful views – yet the Prime Minister assured us of a respectful debate.
“It is now incumbent on the Prime Minister, who initiated the postal vote campaign, to take responsibility and denounce anti-LGBTI vilification like this poster.”
In response to the poster’s ‘statistics’, Croome said the Government’s own Australian Institute for Family Studies has found children raised by same-sex couples have the same outcomes as other children, contradicting claims made in the poster.
“Overall, research evidence indicates that children raised in same-sex parented families do as well emotionally, socially and educationally as other children,” he said.
Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner Kristen Hilton said the anti-LGBTI posters found in Melbourne are a clear sign that a respectful debate will be difficult during a plebiscite or postal survey campaign on marriage equality.
“This is the type of hateful and inaccurate material that the LGBTI community warned would be publicised during any kind of plebiscite on marriage equality,” she said.
“Loving couples have been waiting far too long for discrimination to be written out of our marriage laws and for marriage equality to be achieved in Australia.
“We must correct the record and call out false information, especially when it is unrelated to the actual postal survey that is set to ask solely whether two people of the same sex should be able to marry each other.”
Since the federal government put forward the idea of a postal survey on marriage equality, advocates and allies around the country have criticised it for giving those in the “no” camp free reign to spout homophobia and transphobia to the detriment of the LGBTI community.
Australian voters have until August 24 to enrol or update their details to ensure they can vote in the upcoming postal poll for marriage equality.
Spotted in Melbourne – Heffernan Lane. How is this for a unity moment? @TurnbullMalcolm @cityofmelbourne @AdamBandt @VicGovAu @abcnews pic.twitter.com/syL7vqRJLK
— Dan Leach-McGill (@DrDanLMcG) August 19, 2017
My god there’s some awful excuses for human beings out there . Fancy taking the time to make something like this and then putting it up in a public place for others to see .The people that go to such lengths to hurt people that have done nothing to them must be very sad ,insecure,emotionally unstable and most likely lonely pathetic examples of the human race.
If you really do disagree with what other people are doing why wouldn’t you state it in a respectful manner and put your argument forward with some real facts instead of this obviously made up rubbish ????????????
I guess at the end of the day it just shows the mentality of these poor lost souls ????????
Guess who:
“There are arguments against having a plebiscite, I understand that. There are arguments against it but the weakest argument of all, which I think has no basis, is that the Australian people are not capable of having a respectful discussion on this issue.
I mean, do we think so little of our fellow Australians and our ability to debate important matters of public interest that we say: ‘You’re not able to have a respectful discussion about the definition of marriage’, which is a very significant, important, fundamental element in our law and in our culture.
Australians are able and have demonstrated that they can have a respectful discussion. I am committed to that.
Now, there are plenty of other arguments about plebiscites for and against, but that one that you’ve just described, Sam, is the weakest of them all.”
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/transcript-malcolm-turnbull-takes-question-from-reporters-on-postal-plebiscite-decision-20170808-gxrwp7.html
And another article criticising this paper:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/using-pseudoscience-to-undermine-same-sex-parents/385604/
The 20 families (out of over 20,000 interviewed) from which this study was based had no opportunity to provide background, i.e. where they children from a former traditional marriage that ended in divorce prior to one parent re-partering in a same sex relationship? If the study aims to make assertions about families, family information is fairly important.
The families were first interviewed in 1995, over 20 years ago. If same sex families feel threatened by society now, turn back the clock 20 years! Perhaps negative outcomes, even if founded, could be attributable to how young people from same sex families were treated within a bigoted society?
Keep on fighting!
The web address that’s been crossed out by the person who put these up links to an explicitly neo-nazi website. Image search or Google the phrase and you will find it. “False flag” arse, the ACL and the rest of the fundamentalist homophobic Christian groups are aligning themselves with the far and white supremacist right.
The sub-humans responsible for this should be charged with spreading Hate and malicious Lies.
Where do they get their statistics from?
The Catholic Church? Fred Nile? Tony Abbott? George Christiansen? Cory Bernardi? Kevin Andrews?
All the stats I have read in recent times put the Lie to all their claims.
The biggest , yet mostly irrelevant claim, is the one about us being Obese!
If there is one thing the GLTBIQ Community are very aware of it is their Body Image.
These particular stats are more accurately applied to these bigots.
The ones about Abuse are, without a shadow of doubt more correctly attributable to heterosexuals, priests, bishops and nuns and not us.
I know of no Gay man who was sexually or physically abused as a child by family members – male and some females -, Priests, Teachers etc. who so enjoyed the experience that they think other children would enjoy it.. They loathed it. They loathed the pain inflicted when, as a young child they were penetrated by some so-called Heterosexual Adult male. – usually some male in control: A parent, Uncle, Priest, Teacher etc.
I rang Turnbulls office asking for him to be standing up against this sort of thing. Message will be “passed
On” and for me to rmember this is a small group. I cited all the other “small groups” and people including Bronwyn Bishop et al.
What is there not to understand?
Angry
Ring our spineless PMs office and ask him to speak out.
What about all the hate that others recieve from the gay community toward Christians, do we run to the PM…suck it up & put up with the crap that we have to put up with all the time, it’s called being democratic…people have the right to free speech, even if you don’t like it.
And by the way, I am totally against that poster, and believe whoever did do it is a coward, and it should have NEVER gone up at all. I believe in fairness & equality for EVERYONE…
I rang Turnbulls office asking for him to be standing up against this sort of thing. Message will be “passed
On” and for me to rmember this is a small group. I cited all the other “small groups” and people including Bronwyn Bishop.
Angry
Ring his office.
Careful,
How do we know that the posters weren’t produced by someone from the LGBTI community to provoke the situation. In other words, a “false flag” manoeuvre?
Did you read the poster Allan? The grossly innacurate statistics are referenced at the bottom, a very real article/ hypothesis. Still ridiculous and untrue, however written by Paul Sullins a Catholic University Professor with a PhD.
I’m not against religion, but having a few letters after your title does not resonate intelligence; especially when the basis for your research is pseudo-science.
Careful, some people may think you’re a homophobic bigot.
GRETCHEN: So if someone disagree’s with your point of view does that automatically make them a homophobic bigot??
Just curioius on what your thoughts are.
Because the LGBTI community doesn’t want to incite hatred against itself, quite obviously. Also, they cited a false study, which is their tactic.
Well the No campaign aren’t claiming to have been misquoted, Turnbull has now said “it’s democracy” and refused to condemn them, doesn’t sound like much of a false flag to me. But if you’ve got evidence to the contrary, put it up. Because it won’t go far in a postal survey which is not covered by the usual electoral laws regarding authorisation etc. Yay Liberals, what a genius way of facilitating civil rights (sarcasm, yawn),
The issue and arguments have been before the US courts. The claim that children in same-sex households were going to be worse off was debunked in DeBoer v. Snyder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeBoer_v._Snyder
by David Brodzinsky, Ph.D. http://www.fmhconsultants.com/about-david/
The court supported David Brodzinsky, Ph.D. testimony
From the paper referenced;
From the paper itself: “This research was funded in part by Sponsored Grant 470248 to the Catholic University of America’ Also it declared its limitations: ” Despite the signal strengths of Add Health as a large nationally representative longitudinal dataset and notwithstanding the strong significance for contrast effects reported above, the very small size of the sample of children raised by lesbians imposes important limits and prompts great caution regarding the conclusions of this study. As with all observational studies, causal inference is not possible. Moreover, many subtle distinctions and pathways of influence simply cannot be addressed with only 20 cases, and unobserved differences between the parent comparison groups may well confound some or all of the child differences observed. In particular, the lack of useful measures for parent mental distress, depression, family history of violence, alcohol consumption, and substance abuse precluded examination of important familial risk factors which may be associated with child distress. For these reasons, the findings of this study should be considered only provisional and exploratory until and unless they are confirmed by further research.
Take action and march for marriage equality in Melbourne this Saturday. https://www.facebook.com/events/451539478552645/?ti=icl
There are over 122,000 same sex couples in the USA alone, busy raising children and they’re doing no less well than those raised by opposite sex couples. Many of these children are adopted, and were conceived accidentally by their heterosexual parents who couldn’t be bothered to look after them and dumped them in orphanages, or who had them confiscated by the state because of abuse and neglect. If these absurd allegations were even half true, there’s not a government in the world that would allow adoption by same sex couples, yet most do, and the result is good for the previously unwanted kids, and good for the country:
http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/LGBT-Parenting.pdf
Who better to listen to about the results of same sex parenting, than the kids themselves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFcnZWdZRK0 (Dima Watkins)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSQQK2Vuf9Q (Zach Wahls)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDqiTt7mfsQ (Riley Roberts)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qf0puHJ-KM (“Two Fathers” song)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9x_E7Gj2qw (“Two Gay Dads”)
Here is a sample list of US based organisations that are known to support LGBT families:
The United Nations, The American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, American Anthropological Association, World Health Organisation, American Academy of Pediatrics, Child Welfare League of America, National Association of Social Workers, North American Council on Adoptable Children, American Psychoanalytic Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, Council on Child and Adolescent Health, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Mental Health America, California Psychological Association, American Counselling Association, American Sociological Association, American School Health Association, National Association of School Psychologists, not to mention countless universities, local governments, labor unions, and virtually every human rights organisation that exists.
http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/breaking-largest-study-of-children-raised-by-same-sex-parents-shows-theyre-healthier-than-their-peers/politics/2013/06/05/68146
More than 25 years of research have documented that there is no relationship between parents’ sexual orientation and any measure of a child’s emotional, psychosocial, and behavioral adjustment. We can turn to a host of experts and research findings on the topic including:
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Psychiatric Association
American Psychological Association
National Association of Social Workers
Starting with the American Academy of Pediatrics, which said the following about same-sex parenting: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/131/4/e1374.full
“There is ample evidence to show that children raised by same-gender parents fare as well as those raised by heterosexual parents. More than 25 years of research have documented that there is no relationship between parents’ sexual orientation and any measure of a child’s emotional, psychosocial, and behavioral adjustment. These data have demonstrated no risk to children as a result of growing up in a family with 1 or more gay parents. Conscientious and nurturing adults, whether they are men or women, heterosexual or homosexual, can be excellent parents. The rights, benefits, and protections of civil marriage can further strengthen these families.”
THEN the American Psychiatric Association: “Numerous studies over the last three decades consistently demonstrate that children raised by gay or lesbian parents exhibit the same level of emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as children raised by heterosexual parents. This research indicates that optimal development for children is based not on the sexual orientation of the parents, but on stable attachments to committed and nurturing adults. The research also shows that children who have two parents, regardless of the parents’ sexual orientations, do better than children with only one parent.”
AND the American Psychological Association – which passed a lengthy resolution on this issue. The key parts of that resolution are below:
“WHEREAS there is no scientific evidence that parenting effectiveness is related to parental sexual orientation: lesbian and gay parents are as likely as heterosexual parents to provide supportive and healthy environments for their children (citing research by Patterson, 2000, 2004; Perrin, 2002; Tasker,1999);
“WHEREAS research has shown that the adjustment,development, and psychological well-being of children is unrelated to parental sexual orientation and that the children of lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those of heterosexual parents to flourish (Patterson, 2004; Perrin, 2002; Stacey & Biblarz, 2001);
“THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the APA opposes any discrimination based on sexual orientation in matters of adoption, child custody and visitation, foster care, and reproductive health services; ”THEREFORE
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the APA believes that children reared by a same-sex couple benefit from legal ties to each parent; ”THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the APA supports the protection of parent-child relationships through the legalization of joint adoptions and second parent adoptions of children being reared by same-sex couples; ”
THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that APA shall take a leadership role in opposing all discrimination based on sexual orientation in matters of adoption, child custody and visitation, foster care, and reproductive health services”
NEXT, the National Association of Social Workers:
“Anyone who wishes to examine the 20 years of peer-reviewed studies on the emotional, cognitive and behavioral outcomes of children of gay and lesbian parents will find not one shred of evidence that children are harmed by their parents’ sexual orientation.
“The empirical and clinical evidence suggesting same-sex parents are equivalent to heterosexual parents in their ability to care for children and provide loving homes is so compelling that there is a growing consensus among legal and child welfare experts that there is no rational basis to deny adoption to gay and lesbian couples solely on the basis of their sexual orientation.”
AND the results of a study by the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Amsterdam, in which children were followed from their adoption by same-sex couples during infancy through to adulthood – 17 years in all. Their finding was that children raised by same-sex parents “ were rated significantly higher in social, school/academic, and total competence and significantly lower in social problems, rule-breaking, aggressive, and externalizing problem behavior than their age-matched counterparts in Achenbach’s normative sample of American youth.”
This study was published in the American Academy of Pediatrics three years ago.
In Australia:
• About 11% of Australian gay men and 33% of lesbians have children. Children may have been conceived in the context of previous heterosexual relationships, or raised from birth by a co-parenting gay or lesbian couple or single parent.
• Overall, research to date considerably challenges the point of view that same-sex parented families are harmful to children. Children in such families do as well emotionally, socially and educationally as their peers from heterosexual couple families.
• Some researchers have concluded there are benefits for children raised by lesbian couples in that they experience higher quality parenting, sons display greater gender flexibility, and sons and daughters display more open-mindedness towards sexual, gender and family diversity.
• The possible effect of important socio-economic family factors, such as income and parental education, were not always considered in the studies reviewed in this paper.
• Although many Australian lesbian-parented families appear to be receiving good support from their health care providers, there is evidence that more could be done to develop policies and practices supportive of same-sex parented families in the Australian health, education, child protection and foster care systems.
• Additional key messages, relating to specific family structures and psychosocial outcomes for children raised by lesbian and gay parents, are included throughout the paper.
http://www.aifs.gov.au/cfca/pubs/papers/a145197/index.html
Fuckin’ REVOLTING.
For goodness sake, someone with authority take it down, take them all down. How can we allow this garbage to be displayed in our cities in 2017. Those responsible should be charged for this hateful act. Heartbreaking!
The research paper cited used data that had a sample size of 20 for children of same sex couples, as opposed to over >12000 for opposite sex couples.
Abuse was recorded as either yes or no, with very open ended and far reaching criteria – in fact according to this paper using this criteria almost 60% of children from heterosexual families are “abused”.
Why is the logo in the bottom corner blacked out?
Research paper from a Catholic American College with 1 citation in which it is torn apart from it’s invalid approach…… what a great base for a hate campaign.
Of course, the “research” cited by this poster is intellectual garbage.
Here the article cited by the poster: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/drt/2016/2410392/.
Here is a critique of the article: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/drt/2016/3185067/.
“[Sullins] draws sweeping, outlier conclusions (74 studies collected by my research team at Columbia Law School’s What We Know Project [2], which aggregates scholarship with public policy implications, have found that parent sexual orientation does not affect the wellbeing of children) that can only be reached by fudging the way gay- or lesbian-headed households are discussed and compared to households headed by heterosexuals.”
Thanks Timothy, for posting that. I had read the same critique just a few minutes ago. Sullins is clearly an ass that does bunk “research” and the group citing him is a known white supremacy group (Ironmarch or Ironwatch or some other trashfire).
So are the persons named and organisations noted on the posters going to be charged for hate crimes?
Holy crap, I experienced abuse (everyone at my school did), I have depression and obesity.
Wow, sounds like my parents were gay! If only they’d come out. The things you learn every day.