On Marriage Equality

Draco Houston writes: Re. “Marriage equality would be a victory for ‘respectable’ gays, but what about the rest of us?” (Friday)

Hear hear! I’m in the same boat, queer but also not someone demanding SSM happpen. I am absolutely going to vote yes, the form is on my desk in front of me, actually. But, mainstream normies have been driving me totally insane since the election. Too much thinking of everyone but cis-het folks as a monolith. For some even the question of whether to roll with the vote was off the table.

I’ve encountered people with those ideas so I absolutely don’t want to say the AME etc lied about how LGBTQI people think on the issue, but they drowned out any alternative voices, including anyone that wanted to talk about any number of pressing issues that affect one or more of the letters of the really long acronym.

I just hope these centrists don’t sit on their arse once they have their shiny wedding and state recognition of their marriage. They probably will, but I’ll support it anyway. Where’s my pen? Time to fill this thing out.

On New South Wales in the 1970s

John Kotsopoulos writes: Re. “Rundle: Lionel Murphy fought for equality, and was pursued obsessively by those who hated him” (Friday)

If we are going to rake over old coals from NSW of the 1970s why stop at Lionel Murphy.  His detractors might like to recall the “colourful” Askin Liberal Government of that period. A time when I, as a first time Victorian tourist, was able to visit plush illegal Sydney casinos in Forbes Street, Oxford Street and Goulburn Street.  I choose to omit the street numbers to avoid embarrassment to current occupiers . These were three of what a casino mad workmate told me were many casinos which the NSW police were seemingly oblivious to.

The often ludicrous untested allegations made against Murphy pale into insignificance against this level of officially tolerated illegality under a state Liberal government.