Dammit Margaret Court, I actually attempted to do a piece that defended you and your tennis legacy and what do you do? You go and do something stupid like claim via a national news publication that the existance of homosexuals is due to “moral decline”.

(Rage Alert: Don’t read that article if you’re not a fan of foaming at the mouth by the end of it)

 As Australians many of us do take our sport seriously. I myself have had threats of being written out of family wills if I supported any other football team other than the Balmain Tigers (Yes, Balmain, fuck you Rupert murdoch and your “Superleague” fucking it up for everyone). Swimmers can make a stupid comment on their personal twitter accounts and it makes headline news and they lose sponsorships. And their words matter when sports professionals are given such platforms to trip over. I think that the gay community gave her the opportunity to make noise because we did.

And now she’s been given a megaphone on mainstream media to tell people that the way they feel, the way they are is wrong and they need to be fixed. In a time when we as a community AND a society are working to lower the number of teen suicides, especially gay teens which are at higher risk.

On one hand, I am head-desking to a severe degree due to the backlash from the gay community giving her this kind of platform to spread her closed minded hate. But on the other hand… While I still don’t agree with renaming the arena show court, I do however have this to say;

Margaret Court, Fuck you.

You were the woman I wanted to be when I was growing up playing tennis, and now you sit there on a pedestal telling me that I am  immoral and wrong and I need to be cured because I *chose* this. Yes, because I totally chose to be constantly discriminated against, constantly judged, constantly treated like a second class citizen and constantly made to feel devalued as a human being by religious zealots who tell me I’m an indecent person, an abomination who is going to hell, because I “chose” to be “immoral”.

As per the bible a marriage is between a man and a pack of raped concubines, his sister, or a kitchen condiment (re: pillar of salt story). Further to that, as per the bible man should only be married to god, and women are property so if she’s that fucking fixated on living by the bible’s OBVIOUSLY superior values she should give up her title, her position, her standing in society, all of her posessions and go sit in the corner until her husband gives her up to be raped by the village as a substitute for “god’s messengers” (read: actual story of Sodom and Gomorrah). I mean, if the bible is anything to go by I suppose.

I don’t choose to be constantly discriminated against, its the choice of others to discriminate against me. My plans on this earth consist of living, laughing and loving. Not spending my time crusading against people that don’t intersect my life at all. I don’t like that reality show about the kardashians. Doesn’t mean I go around bitching to the tv channels demanding it’s cancellation. I just don’t watch it and get on with my life. That fucking easy.  I don’t agree with smoking due to its adverse effects on health and people around those who do engage in the practice, SO I DON’T SMOKE AND GET ON WITH MY LIFE.

It really boils down to one simple fact- if you think homosexuality is a sin and wrong, then don’t fucking do it.

Tennis Australia named their main arena after Margaret Court due to her being the first woman to win all grand slam tournaments in the same year. I’m gay and I’m proud of it, and as a kid I started playing tennis because of women like Margaret and the way she PLAYED, not her personal beliefs and values. I didn’t strive to be like her because she was a deeply religious woman with personal views on homosexuality that strive towards the “phobic” suffix, I strove to be like her because she was a champion tennis player during a time when women were still fighting to prove that they could hold their own in the dominant patriarchal society.

Homophobic minds are always going to be there regardless of how far forward in culture and society we reach. The Civil Rights Movements for blacks and women ended decades ago and there is still sexism and racism today. That isn’t condoning it, but it is playing a realistic card into the scenario. Closed minds that have been locked on the inside aren’t going to open regardless of what is presented to them.

When we ourselves start going “if you don’t agree with us we’re going to take away all your achievements” then we are no better than the people that attempt to oppress us into feeling like second class citizens and telling us that what and who we are is wrong. This kind of reaction due to a couple of idiotic statements from a woman who sleeps with a bible under her pillow every night does nothing to help the cause for equality, especially when she isn’t being given any platforms to spread her fear-filled message.

When we fight for rights, fight to be treated as everyone else in society should be treated, we fight for equality. The “Same But Different” approach is the wrong one to take on the road to equality, because it does nothing but hamper the uphill run. The now infamous Rip ‘n Roll Brisbane campaign started because one group disagreed with the message it was communicating to the populous. Does the GLBTI community want to be in the same barrel as the Australian Christian Lobby because they disagree with one woman’s message she was communicating to the populous?

Margaret Court is a retired tennis player with no real authority. The stir that was caused around her comments and the Australian Open could give her more of a platform to loudly communicate her views in much the same way that Marilyn Manson tickets sell faster to teens when a church pickets how evil he is. Bob Katter, is an independent MP that has actual authority and the ability to make decisions about my life and who I want to marry. The approach could very well lead her to the “oh Jesus help me the gays are attacking me!” martyrdom tactic that many of them fall back on, and she will then be given a loudspeaker to “defend herself” and instead use that to start some seriously hurtful shit.

The option for armchair activism for name changes and knee-jerk reactions towards people that have no real weight in society is a waste of time, energy and resources within the community. If you want to actually make a difference, write to your local MP about the importance of Equality, donate time or resources to a local group trying to make a difference. Clicking on an online petition is not going to push the wheels of change. Get angry, get up out of your chair and do something.

I read this article on news.com.au (my first mistake…) earlier this morning (sans caffeine, second mistake..) about how some “leading psychology professor” has stated “PARENTS who let their teens sip champagne at a relative’s wedding or give them a glass of wine over dinner are setting them on a path to binge drinking.”

Now, for starters, I wish this society was more like Italy. They embrace wine, not as the heavy drinking culture we Australians are so used to, but as what it is. Fermented grapes, whatever. They let their kids have wine at the dinner table and teach them that alcohol isn’t taboo. When the kids come of age, they treat their drinking as an indulgence, and look down on anyone that gets completely shitfaced. Its taboo to get drunk and act like an idiot there. Now I won’t say that that represents Italian people as a whole, as I’m sure there’s a fair few out there that enjoy getting plastered off their tits.

The thing that pisses me off about this article, AND the whole issue about binge drinking in general, is the absolute blind ignorance of the root of the whole thing.

Something I don’t think many people have taken into consideration- Binge drinking isn’t the problem.

Binge drinking, is a SYMPTOM OF the PROBLEM.

Everyone, politicians, family groups, media channels are all focusing on the OMGWHAT rather than actually looking at the WHY.

WHY do people get drunk? What is it about alcohol and its effects on the body that is appealing to younger generations?

I can give a few examples in the hundreds. Alcohol is a form of escapism. Because there’s no education from a young age about stress and anger management, because there’s a detachment from being completely open and honest with family and friends in society, alcohol is a vice that is used for the sake of temporarily escaping the stress. I know this because this was why I drank heavily when I was younger.

Alcohol also lowers inhibitions should you so choose to let it affect you. Self-esteem issues run rampant through today’s society and many people have been imprinted with the “you need to get drunk to feel good and feel normal”.

it fucking pisses me the fuck off because putting tax hikes onto mixers didn’t solve the BINGE DRINKING CRISIS (omg!), it only had the young adults swapping out the low alcohol slutcohol vodka cruisers and Bacardi Breezers for pooling money together and getting a 2 for $50 special on the hard alcohol and mixing their own drinks. “OH YEY!” cried the government a few months after they’d intro’d the tax on pre-mixed drinks. “PREE MIXED ALCOHOL SALEZ ARR DOWN BY 16%!” and then covered their ears and screamed “LALALALALALALALALALA” when someone pointed out that hard liquor sales had jumped by 47%.

Politicians love using the youth binge drinking issue as a political soap box subject for their campaigns, but I’ve yet to hear one actually address the cause of it, and ways to go about resolving it. Why do we drink so much? In our culture. To escape. To relax. To let go and have fun. Why are people turning to drinking instead of other avenues of stress release? Why do people need to be drunk to go out and have a good time?

When they can’t figure out the solution to it, they just slap a ban on it. Education can go a long way in this country, and I wish to fuck they’d start treating the populace with a little bit of respect and educate rather than crash tackle them at the hip pocket. And stop fucking with my alcohol!