Gay rights in the Australian state of Queensland haven’t just stalled—they’re moving backwards.
The ruling Liberal National Party (LNP) has announced plans to make it a crime for gay couples, single people or heterosexual couples in a relationship for less than two years to enter into an altruistic surrogacy. (Compensated arrangements are banned in most of Australia.)
This follows other recent setbacks in Australia’s second-largest territory: Less than a year after gay couples won the right to enter into civil partnerships, they were swapped for “registered relationships” and denied access to state ceremonies. LGBT-specific health services have been defunded by the state government, which also announced plans to remove recognition of same-sex partners as parents.
LGBT activists recently protested the LNP’s state conference in Brisbane over these reversals. But the Family Council of Children—sort of an Aussie version of the American Family Association—says things like surrogacy would deprive children of a mother and father. “Does this lobby group only care about equal rights for gay activists, but not equal rights for defenseless children?” FCC spokesman Dr. David van Gend posed in a statement.
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Funny story: As recently as the 1970s, the Australian government routinely removed (some might say “stole”) Aboriginal children of mixed ancestry from their mothers and fathers under the assumption that they’d have a better shot being raised in a civilized white community.
Triple S
Well, getting rid of LGBT specific institutions isn’t a problem in my view. Tax payers money going towards a place that is ONLY for a very small minority. Are we not all equal? Is that not what we’ve been striving for for decades now? Why perpetuate something that segregates us further?
And this surrogacy thing is incredibly overblown and EASILY fixed.
SIGN A CONTRACT.
You can’t trust people. But you can trust a piece of paper that says “You will own this child as per the agreement you made with this other person.”
It’s all well and good to trust someone via word of mouth, but is it worth losing your only chance to be a father or mother?
People are bitching about an EASILY fixed problem. No governmental interference or reforms are needed here; they’re simply trying to give a strong disincentive to creating law suits and cases where hundreds if not thousands of dollars need to be spent unnecessarily on a case that need not exist.
Politics and running a country is like a machine.
And please don’t bring up bloody Aboriginals like you know something about, Queerty. I have nothing against you, but don’t think you know the start of it all. There is a shitload of propaganda, lies, demonisation and extreme victimisation that you haven’t heard the start of. It’s far more in depth than I could possibly explain here to you.
Mr. Enemabag Jones
Triple S is a perfect representation of why I can’t stand Australians as a whole. A nation built on criminals, and their progeny presenting themselves as civilized is patently absurd.
As far as it’s absurd claim that his tiny, insignificant tax dollars might go towards institutions that benefit “ONLY” a certain segment of society demonstrates it’s complete lack of understanding of the larger ramifications outreach programs create. It’s like say it doesn’t want it’s tax dollars to fund roads, because it doesn’t have a car, therefor will never use the roads.
Guzzle down another Fosters, and tend to your shrimp on the barbie.
Mark
@Mr. Enemabag Jones: I know not one Aussie who “guzzles” Fosters nor do we put a “shrimp on the barbie.” That’s a distortion brought to the United States courtesy of Paul Hogan. Don’t just all Australians by one. We’re a good lot.
And frankly, America was built on some religious wing nuts coming from the UK so it’s a bit of tit for tat.
Ogre Magi
@Triple S: “And please don’t bring up bloody Aboriginals like you know something about, Queerty. I have nothing against you, but don’t think you know the start of it all. There is a shitload of propaganda, lies, demonisation and extreme victimisation that you haven’t heard the start of. It’s far more in depth than I could possibly explain here to you.”
So you are saying it didn’t happen?
Nick Farben
Queerty has had a really poor record of reporting on Australian topics as a whole. We have 2 very big political parties in Australia, and depending which is in power, good or bad decisions get made. I’m sure you can relate, but somehow you don’t try.
Queenland’s current government isn’t even from the same party as the current Federal Government, so one law’s passing doesn’t involve the other.
To report on a law in Queensland, and then bring up the Stolen Generation as though somehow the two are related. What the fuck is the point of that? That would be like relating an education law being passed today in Florida, to some agricultural law that passed in Washington DC in the 70’s. And you speak of the Stolen Generation as though you understand all the complexities of the issue? It is complex.
What the fuck kind of writer are you? Do you have half a brain?
Mr. Enemabag Jones
@Mark:
I find it amusing that you take me to task for what I wrote, yet ignore what Triple S wrote.
And judging by your comment about America, you assume I’m American. That’s pretty presumptuous on your part.
Mr. Enemabag Jones
@Nick Farben:
Lot’s of dismissive comments about Queensland’s ruling party stripping LGBTQ Queenslanders of their equality.
This pretty sums up Queensland:
Queensland, often referred to as “The Only State” by its residents, and a laughing stock by everyone else is a ‘Strayan state known for its ridiculous heat, cane toads, abundance of sporting legends, and being Australia’s Texas and being the source of 99.9 per cent of stories featured on A Current Affair.
Gave me quite the chuckle, actually.
Nick Farben
@Mr. Enemabag Jones: And to you silly idiot. The USA currently had a quarter of all the world’s convicts.
And not that it should matter, but the progeny of convicts in Australia are also the first western government to allow women to vote.
And while you’re at it, go look up your Columbus and your Pilgrims, then you talk about our Convicts.
Mr. Enemabag Jones
@Nick Farben:
I’m not American.
Some more Queensland history:
Queensland was created in 1859 when God decided he’d had enough rest and really ought to create something that made all the effort worthwhile. So he created Queensland. Shortly after it was created he realised it was rubbish and donated it to Queen Victoria or in fact left it in a basket at the front door of Buckingham Palace. The Queen was off her face on lead poisoning at the time and didn’t notice.
zane
Why is it that every former British colony has a “Texas?” Alberta is the Texas of Canada, Queensland is the Texas of Australia, the Punjab is the Texas of India. Could this not be a move of enduring colonial hegemony to keep us from having a cohesive government? [sarcasm… kinda…]
Agamemnon
@Mr. Enemabag Jones: I think you’re over selling the state of Queensland a bit too much there… Reminds me of a great song I saw called ‘Queensland’ by ‘Evil Eddie.’ Look it up on Youtube for a chuckle.
@Triple S Speaking as a bisexual migrant to Australia I think that the lack of services is simply appalling. Some of the worlds oldest established support organisations for LGBT people were founded in Australia and exist on shoe-string budgets and hope.
In a country where the landmass is sparsely populated, isolation is the biggest killer of all; despite the fact that the a proportion of the countrys population is concentrated in a handful of capital cities.
Services need broader scope and better funding, because LGBT Australians are Australians too and we fall into specific risk categories and have specific needs that are not addressed by simply signing a contract (Gay panic defence legislation springs to mind). It is too bad that there are many who have forgotten that.
The highest risk groups in Australia are teenagers and the suicide data is not good on any state or national level being even greater than the US. Where are they supposed to go without suport?
Chuck
How is this a setback in gay rights, when it affects straight and single people too?
Oh well
@Chuck, it is a setback for gay right in the same way that, for example, laws against interracial marriage in the U.S. were racist, even though those laws affected whites too.
Triple S
@Ogre Magi: Of course not. I’m simply saying that it isn’t “The white people were evil, and the black people were the poor victims”
Regardless of what has been said, Aboriginals have done a generally shit job at parentage. I know that sounds harsh, but just look at the evidence; living in the middle of no where, high level substance abuse (alcohol and illicit drugs), domestic violence, low education.
But apparently, they were better parents than educated and cultured Europeans. People say all men are made equal, well, maybe in the beginning, but when they get to the level they did, Europeans were able to teach and raise better than Aboriginals did. Sorry, if you disagree, but I say this on the grounds of fact.
@Mr. Enemabag Jones: You just don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. You only know the few mentions that your country’s news-broadcasters tell you about this country, which is less than surface level information. Progeny of convicts? Yeah, they died over a century ago. And Australia is, in fact, one of the most civilised and advanced First World Country in the world. Why do foreigners come here to live all the time? Over a quarter of them are from other nations. Doesn’t seem very uncivilised if people are trying to get here, does it?
@Agamemnon: But why should there be an entirely separate institution for gay people? What’s wrong with the integrated ones? Why separate us? There is no reason to.
Suicide rates for teenagers have nothing to do with LGBT specific institutions. Shelters for young people cater for all of those in need, so that problem already has a solution.
Appalling you say? Why? We are all Australians, as you said, and there it ends. Why should we get special treatment for simply being gay or bisexual? That’s what we keep saying we’re NOT trying to get, we just want EQUAL treatment.
dee-dee
Ugh. Queensland is a backwater end of story. Although South Australia is where all the serial killers come from.
Mr. Enemabag Jones
@dee-dee:
I don’t pretend too to know what I’m talking about; unlike yourself. As far as my country, and it’s news presentations of yours; What country would that be? The information we receive mighty be superficial, but the surface of Queensland is only an inch from the bottom. It doesn’t take much scratching to revel what that state is all about.
As for the progeny of convicts, (which clearly you are one,) Yes. You all come from convicts. And apparently, if your ruling government is any indication, their base personalities live on. It’s a statistical fact that convicts vote conservative in elections.
Australia, perhaps may be civilized. But every country has an exception, and Queensland is yours. You can put lipstick on this pig all you want, Triple S, but it doesn’t change the fact that your states ruling party has enshrined inequity into the law. And you’re defending it.
As far as foreigners moving to Australia, it’s because they’re lazy, and illiterate. Maybe you’re attracting a lower class of people? You usually go where you’ll fit in. But you can’t really use immigration as a defense of Queensland, nor Australia. Lots of people move to Africa, but you wouldn’t use that as a defense of that nation’s bigotry, would you?
Some more fun facts about Queensland:
Queenslanders usually refer to their state as being the smartarse State, via number plates. As a consequence, an IQ test must be completed annually in order to live there. If one fails the test (and achieves an IQ of more than 30) that person is expelled from the state and is made to live in That place that could have been a state but didn’t wanna, The Northern Territory (also known as “Upper Coomera”).
Mr. Enemabag Jones
@Triple S:
Why should we get special treatment for simply being gay or bisexual? That’s what we keep saying we’re NOT trying to get, we just want EQUAL treatment.
Why should you get UNEQUAL treatment simply for being gay? That is what your government has done–made you unequal in the eyes of the law. If all Queenslanders were equal, there wouldn’t be a law specifically targeting their relationships, and making them less equal that those of heterosexuals.
Grant Walker
As a gay resident of Queensland I can confirm that this article is true. The actual situation here is even worse however, with the new government completely cutting. Aids programs and the gay education group QAHC. My own civil partnership is being reissued as a new document and I have been told to either adopt or not have kids at all! And the prime minister just came out on TV to say she is fine with the status quo. Australia is being left behind by CHOICE!