Anti-homophobia campaign launches

Good work Victoria!! 🙂

Wow, nice message. Terribly wooden acting….

Wow really? Millions of “harassment” cases here will come. Even my gay friends cringed at this ad. Ad should have been taken the angle of standing up for yourself IMO

I know the heart of the campaign is in the right place but we’re not all victims. If some boofhead bloke came up to me in a changing room as grunted ‘you’d be right into this mate’ i’d be like ‘sure thing now give us a blow job’.

it’d be nice to see an anti homophobia campaign using a bit of humour and gay confidence to combat the issue rather than coming across as all weepy and woe is me.

Nicely put @marcus!

It is a serious issue at times. I have the pleasure of having some great gay friends. They are regular folk. What they choose to do should not be undermined by society or so publicly looked down upon.

The problem lies in people. More so in their fear and ambiguity. Think of bullying as an example. It is a cognitive attribute that stems from fear itself. It’s good to see more public support of movements like these.

Cheers,

Dan

Hey Marcus,

You do realise there has NEVER been an anti-homophobia campaign of any description on mainstream TV in this country, right?

You talk as though you’re sick of ‘this type of campaign’. But it has no precedent.

What about the thousands of closeted homosexuals who live in fear of coming out because of this type of banter?

I think it’s brilliant that you’re confident and comfortable in your skin, but there’s a shit load more people who are not.

What if that same boofhead was saying things about you behind your back? Perpetuating homophobic ideas within his social group? You’re not there to offer him a blowjob then. are you? That’s the kind of undercurrent that fuels the legalised discrimination we see in marriage law.

Do I think these are brilliant ads? No, but I think the fact that someone made them and got them up and running is a pretty good start.

Perhaps, you can submit some ideas to the organisations who backed this campaign or even start you’re own campaign if you’re otherwise so vehemently opposed to the approach they have taken.

According to those ads are only caucasian people homophobic? This is news to me….

I cheer the fact of this campaign, but agree with Marcus — it seems sort of wet and unconvincing. The examples of homophobia depicted are a little stagey, and the victims come across as passive and sullen. I don’t have a better idea how to tackle the issue, but I wonder at the capacity of this campaign to win anyone over, and especially how it might influence a potential perpetrator/bully. There was a campaign for gay marriage features on this site in the past year that was moving and uplifting and I think might’ve changed some people’s minds. Less optimistic here.

Now, riding off the back of this, can we also stamp out the “that’s so gay” line that’s used so freely these days. It’s as offensive as ‘Nigger’ and I for one am tired of hearing it.

Harvey, didn’t the excellent GetUp! get a run on TV? Or are you referring specifically to anti-homphobia rather than pro equal rights?

Hi Harvey

I’m well aware that this is a first; however, it doesn’t mean I’m going to suddenly lose my cognitive and critical abilities and start doing the “oh my! aren’t we gays great!”

Anything that fights against prejudice is good, but i think there are several missed opportunities here, not least that I fail to see one positive glbt role model in this adverts.

Instead I see a perpetuation of the myth that all glbt persons are weak and isolated – which is hardly a positive message for those in our community who are isolated and are looking for positive stories to help them with their individual journeys.

I’m fully on board that not all glbt might not be as confident as myself but i think a more powerful message would be to have a confident gay sister / brother speak up to the bully instead of (wait for it ) our heroic straight middle class male (I mean – seriously?) to come to the rescue.

it’s a first step and i applaud that. but a great first step – no, I don’t think so. As for the rest of your comments try and patronise / troll me as much as you want. As you’ve noted – I’m a happy confident gay man who’s fully active in our community supporting a wide range of LBGT activites – you can check me out on Linkd In under Marcus Bourget – you won’t get a rise from me on that front.

I lived in Melbourne for 10 years. I would not like to vist there again because from my experience it was a extremely homophobic place and got worse in the last few years of living there. I experienced things like verbal abuse from a passing car, in a workplace, from neighbours, in the street in front of children. Had homophobia rap songs sung to be from a group, in shops. I am not making this up. It was that bad. It was pretty regualar & common.

I never recieved any support from people. Or anyone who actually said anything when they saw this happening. I would call the gay & lesbian police liasion and get no response. I am not kidding. I once let workplace recruitment person know what was happening. There response was ‘leave it with me’ ‘Don’t say anything’ SoI ended up leaving the workplace & the people actually got away with the bullying. Their was a gay man in the office place who choose to be workplace friends with these guys who would call me names. That town truly sucks.

I also know Ethopians from Melbourne who have left because they were treated like garbage.

I hope this campaign actually makes a difference. I now live in Sydney and yes I still get called names occasionally. I always stand up for myself and never take any crap from people. It took that decision to not be so bothered by this issue. If you ever hear/see anything please speak up.

I have thought alot about people who do this type of behaviour. I used to think they would not do it if they knew the effect they were having. I now no longer think that. Some people actually enjoying calling names out at gay men. They view gay people as people that are there to harrass. They take zero responsibilty for their actions. And do not care & would like gay people all to be dead.

If you see people recieving this type of abuse please stand up. If you are a woman & your boyfriend starts calling gay men names and do nothing then I am sorry but you suck.