Offensive Political Junkmail

I got this political junk mail in the letter box today. Usually I can ignore it. I loathe negative adds and negative campaigning. If you have to raise yourself up by putting others down then you are in the wrong business.

But this one pissed me off enough to say something about it. 

I have deleted the candidate’s name that they are attacking. I did a little bit of searching but failed to find if this is from a candidate themselves (I suspect not – but who knows)

What offends me is that the Aust Education Union Policy calls for sex education to include all forms of sexuality and this person then says it will be taught in KINDERGARTEN.  That is a very long bow to draw.

The statement next to the young girl “I need my mum and dad” is also very manipulative. 

I have single parent friends who have raised AWESOME children. Friends of mine have lived without one parent and they seem to have turned out ok. I have gay friends with kids and their kids are also AWESOME. I have the pleasure if being one of the male role models for one of these kids as well as being a male role model for kids of mixed couples.

I had the honour of being best man at my gay friend’s wedding to his husband and it was one of the most romantic, sincere and fun weddings I have ever been to. It wasn’t legally binding but it was morally and spiritually binding. With or without the bit of paper, they are committed to each other.

What this pamphlet screams to me is ignorance and a complete lack of celebration of the differences in life. What joy it brings to see people of different cultures, sexualities, hair styles, heights and body shapes live their lives together supporting each other.

For me, all it has done has made me want to vote for the candidate that they are campaigning against. 

My school’s motto was “Vertias Liberabit Vos” or The Truth will Set You Free. Like most political issues and cultural issues we face, we are not dealing in facts but in emotions and fears. So even if same-sex marriage does lead to education about more detailed sex education in schools, is this a bad thing? 

What kind of world do we live in when what one couple do in the privacy of their own home creates a freak out in someone else’s home on the other side of the city? Should we tell some of the older Mediterranean gents who hold hands to stop? Should we tell Sri Lankans to stop kissing each other (on two cheeks no less!) to stop? What about Asian school girls who are known to walk down the street arm in arm? Should they be forced to not touch each other?

What this world needs is more love, more connection, more communication, more acceptance and not this kind of rubbish!