Rural Town Homophobia and Mentality

Hello every one,

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

This week I am going to write about homophobia in rural towns. This weekend my partner and I went to Ballarat to support the same sex marriage rally on Sunday. We travelled up on the Saturday evening, after my extensive Q & A Mentor training. We settled nicely into our motel room before setting out for dinner.

We went to the main street to check out the restaurants, we picked one from driving past, as it seemed to be a nice place to go, WRONG.... As we approached it, it seemed to filled with the typical rural town Aussie families. It would have been an interesting conversation for all there to see 2 openly gay guys have dinner in their restaurant. So we choose to eat elsewhere. We picked a nice Greek Restaurant, which was perfect, it was quiet and the meals were delicious.

The next day, My Partner and I made our way to the meeting place for the rally... There were not as many as you would expect to see, say at Melbourne, but the turnout was a great small support group. So we headed off on the mission to be vocal about the fight for equal rights. We did not have any police escort (was this because, we are seen as a small minority group, who is out there to make a nuisance and to be seen as wasting police resources). We trodden along the footpaths into the main street, past shops and restaurants, with people trying to work out as to what was happening in their small quiet sleepy town. Some people waved and smiled and were happy to take the flyers we were handing out, some were absolute shock horror, as if we are diseased ridden venoms, trying their best to ignore us and go about their lives as we were not there. These are the people we need to push with, being in their faces, being out and loud, so they can hear us, and for them to know we are not going away.

It made me appreciate the comfort I have living in Melbourne and to be openly affectionate with my partner in public. But to try that in a rural town , is asking for trouble. It is easier for me to remove myself from that as I don't live there. I really do feel for the GLBTIQ community of the rural towns, that have no support or resources, as I grew up in a town with the similar mentality. I think it is time that the GLBTIQ community of the big smoke, get out there amongst the rural community and help fight homophobia. I will be making it my aim to help change that, by becoming more involved with theses communities, through my organisations such as Glockids and Coming Out Australia.

I applaud Koby Drake for organising the Ballarat Same Sex Marriage Rally, as for a young man, who has been exposed to the homophobia and small town mentality of the ignorance people to make a stand for what he believes is his right and the right for other people in the rural GLBTIQ community, is a huge effort and should not be sneezed at. He is a perfect example of what the youth of the GBLTIQ community should be doing to make a difference for their generation and future generations to come. To fight homophobia, we have to make a visual presence and be heard. No matter how small the protests are or how they start, it is the continual support and drive is what will make the difference. We may not be able to change the attitudes of the older generation, but we can certainly make a change to the attitudes of the younger generation.

Homophobia

Homophobia. We know it is there, but we do not want to talk about it.

Homophobia is a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards homosexuality and people identified or perceived as being homosexual.

I never really worried about the word, when I came out 4 years ago, and never really worried about up until recently, with my son's school and when the article of Jason Akermanis telling the "gays to stay in the closet". I read the article with quite some interest as to how the article was constructed. It shocked me as to how the article was strong about homophobia and being gay was like a disease. Jason explaining how he felt uncomfortable being around a gay person and he could never understand it.

Maybe, if he did the research on homophobia and being gay, the article would have been constructed in a completely different manner and have a completely different meaning. I am sure if he had taken the time to find an organisation in the GLBTIQ community to discuss his article before it was publish, he would thought twice about what to say. I can see the point that what he was trying to say, that now is not the time for the AFL to embrace homosexuality, but to come across as closet homophobia does make you think that he has not been educated enough to understand what he was saying.I applaud the younger generation in taking the step to identifying their sexuality and being proud of it dealing with homophobia in such a resilent manner.

As a gay parent, I realise that my children will be exposed to homophobia behaviour one day, that will be directed at them because their dad is gay. How do you teach your children about homophobia behaviour, when they are not gay? This is one area, that I think that it has not been addresses in the gay community on a large scale. Has there ever been any gay bashing directed at a heterosexual child of a gay parent? We may never know, as the child, may see it as a normal bullying issue. I had a situation not long ago with my eldest at school, I addressed the school about it and asked the question what they thought the bullying was about. They did not understand my question or where I was coming from. I asked them if they looked into the bullying in relation to homophobia behaviour. They were quite shocked and not happy that I would bring up such a subject. This just go to show you that the school had no strategies put in place for this kind of bullying issue. I found out later, that I was probably the other gay parent related to any child in the school. Thes school has drafted a homophobia policy, to integrated with their racist, sexism policy. Oh by the way, the bullying issue had nothing to do with homophobia, they were fighting over a book. But this did demonstrate the mentality of the education of homophobia in the general society. I have taught my children that they do not have accept homophobia and that it is not a disease.