“Don’t worry about it Cody. The numbers are in your favour. It’ll happen. Have faith in the Australian public to come together and do the right thing.”
One night I was walking home alone in the dark. I hear someone yell “Where the fuck are you going dressed like a faggot?”. There’s four of them. I run, legitimately afraid for my life.
They get a vote.
My first girlfriend was firmly in the closet. I helped her come out to her parents. They bullied her into moving to Sydney to break us up. Last I heard from her she’d been hospitalised after trying to kill herself. I’ve never been able to reconnect with her. I don’t know if she got better after that.
Her parents get a vote.
I’m sitting in a year 12 ethics class. I’m being told that Catholics don’t really hate gay people, it’s just that homosexuality is a sin, and those feelings need to be repressed. By the way my skin is crawling, I know what’s being said is wrong. But I didn’t know how to challenge it.
That teacher gets a vote.
My uncle thought the queer community of Newcastle were trying to turn him gay because he was seen taking his nephew to the movies.
He gets a vote.
I’m sitting on a bus that happens to be going past Parliament House after a anti-SSM rally. A sunburned woman sits down next to me. She’s holding a sign that says “God made men and women for a reason”. I bring up intersex with her and she dismisses “those people” as being “abortions of Satan” sent to confuse “good Christians”.
She gets a vote.
I’m standing up for Safe Schools at a rally, some guy walking past yells at us for protecting paedos and how we’re all scum.
He gets a vote.
I’m hanging around civic interchange, two Mormons walk up to me. Jokingly I tell them “I’m not interested, I’m gay”. I’m subjected to twenty minutes of hostility and postulating as to whether or not I truly deserve happiness. It’s surreal, almost funny, but I notice myself shaking with anger as I walk away.
Both of them get votes.
At the pool I get mistaken for a man in the women’s change room, called a tranny, a pervert, a sick fuck. Right in front of her own children I might add. Setting a great example.
Her children won’t get a vote at least, but she will.
Guy in my class has been unsubtly signalling his interest in me for a while. Presses the point until I just tell him I’m gay to get him off my back. He tells me lesbians don’t really exist, they just haven’t been fucked properly.
He gets a vote.
On the plus side, the guy who told me I should have been shot dead in that faggot club when I was reaching out to people upset by the Orlando Shooting probably won’t get a vote. I don’t believe they were Australian.
But that guy asking me what marriage equality is will get a vote.
On twitter I’m subscribed to dozens of news feeds, political groups, political figures, queer community leaders, and friends invested in the debate. At any given time of the day I can find a tweet about the plebiscite, click it, and find all manner of vile hatred being thrown back in response. I just did it right now.
“#plebiscite? What a joke! This #faggot shit is #CulturalAppropriation of the #Jew! Wake the fuck up!”
I have no idea how many people like Mr Schutz3 here will get to vote in the plebiscite, but you can assume it’s some of them.
My elected representatives are planning to give 7.5 million dollars to a whole bunch of people seeking to compel a frustrated and apathetic populace to vote against my rights. Worse than that Lyle Shelton (who gets a vote) has already outlined plans to use that money to go after safe schools and scaremongering about rainbow families. For the next five months, I can only guess what I might come across, in the street, on TV, in newspapers, let alone online. I can’t imagine it’ll be escapable.
Every single person attached to that campaign will get to vote, as well as every person influenced by it.
But don’t worry about it Cody.
Cody from Facebook, leaving off their last name because even on Tumblr they could get hate for a post like this, and that pisses me the fuck off. (via jeopardising)
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