{"id":1980,"date":"2010-09-06T10:24:27","date_gmt":"2010-09-06T00:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/?p=1980"},"modified":"2010-09-06T10:24:27","modified_gmt":"2010-09-06T00:24:27","slug":"comfort-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/?p=1980","title":{"rendered":"COMFORT ZONE:"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After the news of the AFL player saying players who are gay should not come out, and the backlash from that, and now recently seeing our local member of parliament outed by a tabloid news show, i think it\u2019s safe to say homophobia is alive and well and living in a person near you.<\/p>\n

The outing of Dave Campbell was an attack of pure homophobia, it cannot be excused or explained away as anything else.<\/p>\n

Using the excuse that he had used a \u2018ministerial car\u2019?, so what?, the man has done nothing illegal, visiting a gay sex on premises venue is not illegal, it is not a crime, it may be morally questionable in some peoples minds, but if he\u2019d used the car to go purchase a carton of cigarettes, a carton of beer or to go place a bet, it wouldn\u2019t matter a jot, all those things to some are of questionable morality, but not illegal, and in this insane world what isn\u2019t questionable and morally offensive to some, what is morally offensive to me is that gay men of every age are committing suicide at up to four times the average for males, that people of the GLBTI community are being bashed and maimed and killed, and that isolation and loneliness is a wretched problem in the GLBTI community. <\/p>\n

Mostly I feel for the guy, and a sense of great sadness that our very recent, and current history, that made it impossible for a man of his generation to come out, to be supported and to be nurtured in his true self, even when I was young, and Dave is an alma mater of my own Corrimal High School, it was absolutely not an option to come out and be open about your sexuality, just being in the music class got you bashed, I may be staring down the barrel of a total prolapse and fast approaching a state decrepitude, but I didn\u2019t go to school \u2018that\u2019 long ago, and guys and girls, I hate to say this again but it still isn\u2019t that good for us, recently in Surry Hills a man was gay bashed, did I mention this happened on the international day against homophobia?.<\/p>\n

Some will say \u2018It\u2019s their personal business if they come out or not\u2019, and that\u2019s true, but I\u2019m also calling it that that defence has a wider impact on our community, our safety and our well being and acceptance, and we can\u2019t dance around that or deny it, being visible and normalising (for want of a better word) our part in the world community is all our responsibility, from a Storeperson right through to, well lets say, an Olympic world record holder, you know the old clich\u00e9s, \u2018every grain of sand\u2019 \u2018Every drop of water\u2019 well, they\u2019re true. <\/p>\n

How much are we to blame as a community? If we don\u2019t want the shame, the scandal, the getting caught out, the getting comfortable having different levels of openness, or lies, for different sets of people around us, then we have to be brave and step up to the plate and take whatever is flung at us, whatever pain we have to endure and whatever the consequence may be, but something to remember is that it will be \u2018their\u2019 issue and problem, but we\u2019ll have our dignity. Not for a second do I suggest it will be, or is easy, when I came out I lost 25 kilo\u2019s with the stress (see, their can be a silver lining) we risk losing family, friends, being ridiculed, anger and hatred, but how much energy and distraction do we expend by jumping, and hopping around juggling comfort levels for others, when we\u2019re not comfortable ourselves?, who are we living for here?, I think the perfect example of what happens when you juggle for others, we are seeing in the story of David Campbell, to quote Keith Richards \u2018You can\u2019t accuse me of something I\u2019ve admitted to\u2019, sooner or later it comes crumbling down, and we lose the control of the situation, the trying to solve and cover many problems, when as painful as it may be, the truth would have been the only way for him to remain empowered.<\/p>\n

Complacency is a very dangerous thing, how many times in history have groups of people said \u2018It\u2019s not too bad, they just dislike us\u2019 Then \u2018It\u2019s not too bad, they aren\u2019t kicking us out of our homes\u2019 Next \u2018It\u2019s not too bad, they aren\u2019t killing us\u2019 Till finally .. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I feel for us, and all we risk, all we have risked and everything that has been lost by being truthful to ourselves, and those around us, but again quite often it is only thus as we try and satisfy the morals, the intolerances, the prejudices and the narrow mindedness and the uneducated around us.<\/p>\n

I guess we\u2019re all complicit in this to one extent or another, I\u2019ve long believed that \u2018well enough\u2019 isn\u2019t good enough, being \u2018relatively\u2019 comfortable behind our locked doors, and SOME streets, if we alter and compromise our usual behaviour, is just not good enough for me, as long as we can\u2019t marry, can\u2019t adopt, have to lie, can\u2019t be totally open, have to change our behaviour any time we step outside our front door, can\u2019t hold hands walking down Crown st, have to alter our movements, activities, the way we speak, and act, and a million other things (and tell me that we don\u2019t all do those things to some extent) then I think we all have a duty to do more, have a sense of pride and ownership in our true selves.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think I need to spell out in point form all the positives that could also come out of choosing to \u2018live the truth\u2019, for every negative there has to be an equal and opposite positive.<\/p>\n

These are just my thoughts, what are the answers?, I don\u2019t really know, what do we do about it?, that\u2019s up to you.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll finish off with my favourite quote by Benjamin Franklin ..<\/p>\n

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Greg xoxo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the news of the AFL player saying players who are gay should not come out, and the backlash from that, and now recently seeing our local member of parliament outed by a tabloid news show, i think it\u2019s safe … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1980"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1983,"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980\/revisions\/1983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}