<H2><b>JCCV AND BEYOND BLUE - HOMOPHOBIA IS THE COMMON THREAD!</b></H2>

I do not waste my time reading Galus Australis - the people involved are either zionists or right-wing religious homophobic bigots - or both! - and the few times I have visited the site were because I was directed there by postings from a blog on whose mailing list I happen to be.

What continues to be disturbing is the innate homophobia which continues to be expressed by so many who post there - either articles or contributors.

What does it mean to be gay and Jewish - and why does it matter if one is a gay Jew or a Jewish gay? They are expressions of one's identity and one is not the one without the other.

In Australia there are Jewish communities and there are gay communities and some people belong and others don't. Some people are activists and others aren't. We aren't all the same and that is something to be thankful for.

We had a visitor from Sydney during the week and one of the things he said which I found very interesting was that he doesn't watch a particular television channel's news (one of the commercial channels!) because it is political and he hates anything political!

Everything we do is political and our friend, being a gay man - not Jewish - should actually understand that the mere fact that he is a gay man living in a relationship openly with another gay man is a statement of politics!

Back to Melbourne and its homophobic groups and organisations.

In recent times, due to attacks on them from the gay communities, the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (sic) and beyondblue - Jeff Kennett's organisation dealing with depression and ideation of suicide - have stated that they are including gay issues or people to become part of "reference" groups - whatever that signifies.

As a gay Jew I wouldn't want to be part of either of these organisations because they contain so many homophobic bigots and they are not in any hurry to change.

As a gay Jew I demand equality, not some crumbs from the tables of those being patronising, condescending or hypocritically pretending to offer support.

I certainly wouldn't become part of a discussion on a blog such as Galus Australis where bigotry falls out of every other posting.

Homophobia has been on the increase recently, not just in Australia but around the world. Religious bigotry is to blame for most of it, but the results have been some tragic suicides of very young people, too young to have started living and getting beyond the bullying, isolation, desperation and despair that must enter their very beings and make them feel that they have nothing to live for.

Those who, like me, were born in an era when coming out as a gay person was very difficult, when it was illegal, when it was looked upon as a mental illness and "curing" was done by frying the brain and other means of torture, found that it was difficult to understand those feelings and how to deal with being "different"
and having to live a life of secrecy and concealment.

Although it has become somewhat easier over the last 30 years due to activism and fights for gay liberation, religious bigotry, supported in the main by politicians around the world, continues to be the major problem and the fight for equality will continue until we can put an end to this bigotry.