Sexuality.

I grew up in a small neighborhood called Island Bay. My grandmother as I have previously mentioned was my only parent, so it was a quite quiet existence. I spent my time as a kid working diligently in school, among other extra-curricular activities. I picked up two years of Ryuku Kempo Karate, learned the Violin, participated in Gymnastics, and spent many weeks working on my confidence and acting skills with the Helen O'Grady drama academy.

My favorite past time ten years ago, before I had access to a computer let alone the internet; was creating things. I used to buy large pieces of white cardboard and map out my own board games. I would then decorate them with different colors, make rules about which characters had what powers, and buy thinner colored cardboard to use for the cards in said games. To my memory I had a Pokemon' board game, and a Dragon Ball Z board game. I used to force my grandmother to play it with me, because y'know when you're that young and you spend a whole weekend crafting a masterpiece who better do you want to share it with than the one you love the most?

In the late ninetees at an even younger age, my first obsession bloomed. In the form of the Spice Girls. I used to dance to their songs with three other girls in our class, and force the rest of our room to watch after lunch time once every fortnight (until we got a new teacher who didn't approve). I pretended to have met them when I went on holiday to Australia in 1998 because, y'know, how the fuck would anyone find out?

I adored them. On that, I don't know exactly when I realized I wasn't like the "other boys" in school but I certainly had feminine traits tracing back to my first memory in 1992. I was born in 1988. The first time I realized I "liked" boys as well as girls would have been at about age seven. I was watching television one day and I remember becoming aroused over a naked male shower gel ad. The next morning I asked my grandmother, why this had occurred to which I frankly remember her telling me "no it didn't", as if in somehow re-writing history I would not turn out abnormal. Whoops.

By eleven years old I knew. I kept these odd feelings to myself, thinking that perhaps it was "just a phase" or something. I guess back then I didn't acknowledge it, it wasn't until I was twelve and in my final year of primary (elementary school) that I really analyzed the world and my place in it and figured out that whether I liked it or not, I was always to be different.

It's strange to think that I spent seven years of my youth lying to every single person in my life. Not a peep from me about any of my homosexual feelings until I had finally left school at age eighteen. I think I revelled in it somewhat. The mystery, the intrigue, hiding out in plain sight. It was captivating while also incredibly frustrating and lonely. If you grow up in a world where every other person is heterosexual and where you feel like admitting you are any different from that will ruin and ostracize your chances of having friends and the life the people around you give you based on the assumption that everybody is straight unless they say they are not. This is why I can't understand religious people, whom think that being gay or bisexual is some kind of choice that just happens to people on a random basis.

For me, being not heterosexual was a painfully anticipated process, disrupted and deferred almost all of the time based on my own fear of being different and my longing to fit in to the status quo and maintain the image of my life as a teenager that I was used to. Sometimes in life, you really need to delve deep into yourself and forget everything other people expect out of you as a member of society, and develop yourself as a human being free of social constraints. Rich, white, straight men I guess never really have to think twice about inequality or difference because everything is a given to those types of people in life. You know, role models, expectations, rite-of-passage, the prom, getting married, children, work, old age, death. It's mapped out in a way that gives normal people like that a sense of comfort and permanence in their abilities to exact what will happen in the future.

I guess a part of the whole gay-rights movement does scare them in a sense that the world they know themselves doesn't as a matter of fact exist in reality. Most straight people would prefer to keep any type of "other" hidden, or at least to a lower form of status. It pains me that they can't see why homosexual people want the same kind of mapped out expectation as them? People don't want the government and society at large (as well as religious leaders) constantly demeaning their entire existence. You know, religious leaders assume gays and lesbians are sexual deviants but never actually stop to ask why that stereotype whether true or not exists. I would vouch for the plain idea that having grown up in a world that does not support stable gay relationships as something people should respect; sends a subtle message to gay and lesbian people that there is no real point in... monogamy... celibacy... and chastity.

Is that what religious people want? Homosexual people covered up throughout time, only able to slut it up in private, away from any kind of actual relationship, family or legal rights? If so I think that's quite sad. I feel pity for people whom can't see the obvious in the world and instead rely on the unreal and outlandish reasons for denying people the simple human favor of equal treatment.

Why Tony Abbott Will Allow a Conscience Vote on Gay Marriage

The struggle to legalise  same sex marriage rights is the civil rights campaign of our generation. Homosexuals are widely considered one of the final minorities to be oppressed by codified and systematic government legislation. Whether people agree with marriage equality or disagree, eighty percent polled admit that they see it as an inevitability that the denial of marriage rights will disappear sooner rather than later, sixty percent want gay marriage legalised and eighty percent of people aged 18-24 are in favor of marriage reforms. If you can't see where the waves are headed you are living in another dimension far away from any reasonable logic.

Most Australian's also gree that when changes to the Marriage Act are proposed in February next year, that every member of parliament should be a allowed a conscience vote on the issue. Tony Abbott and the liberal party have taken a view toward continued discrimination as a platform. Julia Gillard and the labor party have changed their party view to endorse same sex marriage but with the caveat that their members can choose to vote against it if their conscience demands. Without the support of the Liberal's, any marriage legislation will go nowhere because some Labor MP's will inevitably vote against the measure. There is a lot of time before February and I think that Tony Abbott will change his mind at the eleventh hour before the vote is held and I'll tell you why I know this. 

It's been over a year since I last wrote to Julia Gillard about her stance against same sex marriage and argued that Australia will quickly be seen as a country going backwards, living in the past stuck in a rut of permanence to elderly ideals. There has been a commendable shift in Australia since then. The first thing and most important is the recent Labor party conference forcing her to open her eyes and change the official party policy. They've gone from accepting discrimination to opposing it. Since July 2010, New South Wales voted in favor of same-sex adoption rights and Queensland introduced and passed a Civil Unions bill that allows for legal ceremonies as well as the legal protections that come with marriage. Things have changed across oceans with New York and Mexico propelling forward and ending marriage inequality in their shores. 

While the labor party have endorsed equal rights, the prime minister still says she believes that Marriage is between one Man and one Woman. I don't believe Julia Gillard as a person is against same-sex marriage. It would be a fundamental black spot in her personality for that to be true considering she knows first hand what discrimination feels like for many reasons including her gender, hair color and current "marital" status with her boyfriend. The political version of Julia Gillard opposes equal rights only because she and her lobbyists agree that they will lose more marginal votes if she changes her views now.

Why doesn't it matter that public opinion has changed in a year and a half? Because as a prime minister she has already been accused of changing her mind on carbon tax and a range of other issues. With the amount of times she said "I believe that Marriage is between a Man and a Woman and that the Marriage act should stand" on national television and radio interviews, I can see it being hard for her to back track on that platform without some political backlash. 

Instead Julia Gillard went into the labor party's annual conference last month and used her own party's views as a shield against changing her own. Rather than support gay marriage outright, she "allowed" the party to vote in a majority for changes to the labor platform in favor of equality but with the one exemption that not all labor MP's are required to vote in favor of it. When I say allowed I mean that if she didn't permit the measure she would have been outvoted by her own party. That had the chance of forcing a stronger stance that would not have included the option for a conscience vote but a full blown mandatory party position. Instead she backed down and chose the option that guarantees any changes to the Marriage Act this year will fail without support from the opposing party, but at the same time oversaw a shift in official party platform, a shift that sends a strong message to people everywhere. 

The media had a field day with it, and while editors at The Australian and Ben-Peter Terpstra probably threw a tantrum, news was mostly seen as positive in all other sources including SMH and news.com.au. International sites have recognised that Australia's ruling party just endorsed same-sex marriage. That is the sort of news headline which forces people to change their hearts and minds and gives gay people everywhere affirmation and hope for better things to come. It can't be understated enough, so thanks labor party for your half attempt at doing the right thing. It sure beats doing the wrong thing. Like the Liberal party are now. Tony Abbott and the Liberal party are going to learn that they are being unreasonably staunch, eventually, and hopefully have the balls to allow a free party vote on any future law changes. I don't know that much about Australian politics but I believe that this is the first time a liberal party leader has instructed all of its members to vote according to one platform, apparently it's seen as a party that respects "liberty" and "choice". So why is Abbott being such a stick in the mud on this one occasion? 

It comes down to politics, there is no question about it. This is one of the last few issues he can use against Julia Gillard as a weapon for vote grabbing. He thinks that if he points out that the labor party has lied about supporting "traditional marriage" like they lied about carbon tax, that he can paint Gillard as the ultimate flip-flopper. He maintains that the Liberal's have to vote against Marriage Act changes because that was their stance when people voted for them.

If Tony Abbott believes that politicians aren't allowed to change their minds and admit that the world has evolved around them, then he is an idiot. As much as i dislike the current New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, I must agree with his position that the political landscape is fluid. John Key explained that politicians should be able to alter their former stances to adapt with a transforming world and economy. Tony Abbott needs to take notes from his New Zealand counterpart. I mean even some of his closest colleagues also agree that a conscience vote is the right thing to do and I would consider it kind of embarrassing that your deputy prime minister is publicly come out in support of a conscience vote in the media while you stonewall against it. It definitely isn't an easy place for Mr. Abbott. He is being heavily lobbied on both sides of the political paradigm and for now he has chosen the safe option. But will he keep it?

I don't believe so. I think that the tide has turned too far now for him to realistically deny a conscience vote and make the liberal party go down in history as the party that prevented civil rights from progressing. In my opinion it would be a big stain on everything they say they stand for. What I believe he is doing is saying no for now, just like Julia Gillard did previously, so that the right wing base of his party don't get up in arms about it for months and months. The actual vote is still at least sixty days away. He'll be firm on his position just like she was. Think of it as a form of political trickery. Tick tock the equality clock will go and at the last minute a conscience vote will be permitted... and that my friends is when the real fun will start. 

It gets better.

Coming out wasn't that hard. But the years leading up to it were. I remember feeling so isolated in high school. I remember thinking that I was a freak as a child. Feeling that I was somehow unnatural, deformed, like an alien. Not simply just out of the ordinary, at age ten I knew that there was something "wrong" with me. I felt as though I was the only one who was sick in a world full of properly functioning individuals.

Because there were no such things as gay characters on television back then, all I ever observed growing up were the price and the princess, the boyfriend and the girlfriend, and so on. It was very strange being a homosexual child because there was zero communication about the subject and no way for a me, as a young person to have any idea who I was and more importantly, why I am the way I am. Humans are constantly asking "why?" in life, observing and sleuthing answers. Where there are no answers the silence to a topic can become deafening in its own right.

Perhaps these days it's different with shows like Glee, but the stigma associated with homosexuality still permeates our world. Many families only speak of it in negative terms with words words such as "sinful" "unnatural" and "disgusting" being associated with hints of pedophilia and sickness. These world views are ingrained in deep religious feelings, associated with Leviticus from the bible. Such hatred is split to the next generation of children who take the same opinions to the playground and systematically use their parents moral opinions as a way to justify their bullying. 

I want to put forward my reasons for saying "it gets better". The first thing people need to understand is that public sentiment to homosexuality is swiftly shifting in favor of equal rights and liberty. It is no longer acceptable in a free and democratic society for anybody to equate gay people as pedophiles, or is it legally acceptable in most good countries to deny housing or employment to persons based on sexuality.

The second thing to note is a change in the way global courts are reacting to issues concerning abuse, denial of rights and inequality to people who are Gay. While the Court of European human rights didn't extend to european countries the responsibility of making same-sex legal, it did state that there was an "emerging legal consensus" that such unions are becoming the norm. This year alone, three more countries legalized same sex marriage (Iceland, Argentina and Mexico), and a whole slew of others legalized civil unions. There is also currently a same-sex marriage bill in the Chile congress which if passes will bring a total of eleven countries in the world enabling full equal rights to all citizens. New South Wales in Australia became the fourth state in the country to legalize same-sex adoption. A California court struck down Proposition 8 which eliminated the rights for same-sex couples in C.A. to get married. A federal judge struck down the Defense of Marriage Act as partly unconstitutional shortly before another judge ruled the military ban, "Don't ask don't tell" completely and without any rational basis unconstitutional as-well.

Straight animals don't cause other Gay animals to commit suicide.

The world makes me sad sometimes.

Ben-Peter Terpstra; clearly thinks gay people are only half human