unsane

In ‘Appalling’ law lets schools expel gay students (Sydney Morning Herald), we’re told:

A SENIOR Anglican bishop calls it “appalling” and a gay and lesbian rights group condemns it as “deeply offensive”, but the Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, backs a NSW law that allows private schools to expel gay students simply for being gay.

The law, it turns out, was introduced in the Wran era in NSW politics, and allows private schools (with a particular focus, methinks, on religious private schools) to have the power to expel students for being gay. Except under the most lucky of circumstances, same-sex attracted teenagers have the most difficulty during those formative years, and don’t deserve this headache. You may say “sure, then don’t send them to a religious school” – but if you did, you’d be not thinking of the most simple fact: most kids don’t really get a say in what school they go to: it’s a parent/guardian decision.

Quoting the article further:

The chief executive of ACON, Nicolas Parkhill, condemned the law as “deeply offensive, patently unethical and damaging to our society on multiple levels. Recent research shows that young same-sex-attracted people are up to 14 times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers and that 80 per cent of the verbal or physical abuse they experience occurs in schools.

“Allowing religious schools to reinforce this negative experience by giving them the right to expel the victims of homophobic attitudes is incomprehensible.”

Nicolas Parkhill is being remarkably restrained, I think.

That this hateful, mean spirited, spiteful, bigoted, moronic and evil law was ever introduced is enough of a stain on the spirit of NSW – that it remains, and has the current Attorney General still approve of it, is utterly disgusting. Yet, we shouldn’t be surprised – this is a state excessively dominated by religious pandering. The separation of church and state is a farce in Australian politics. Cults get special dispensation to exclude themselves from compulsory voting, then get to raise their “concerns” with how the country should be run to politicians. They also get to interfere with elections by helping to campaign against politicians they don’t like. Religious leaders get to have special forums with politicians to quiz them about how they’re going to behave spiritually if elected.

And arseholes get to expel kids from school for the transgression of how they were born, thanks to a legal shield.

You know what I’d like to see?  A legal shield against bigotry. But to get that, we’ll need an Attorney-General who supports the ending of bigotry, rather than supporting bigotry.