Dear Campbell Newman and the Queensland government,
I know you pretty well.
I was part of your State electorate for the larger portion of my life, and I spent at least three years working for you in some capacity. Even though you overpaid some members of your staff who took cigarette breaks every hour (making a combined durry break total of about 1.2 hours!?) you treated me reasonably and the OH&S was out of sight so kudos for that.
You always provided office chairs with great lumbar support but you’re also homophobic, socially regressive and culturally retarded.
How did you think amending surrogacy laws to prevent single people, same-sex couples and couples who have lived together for under two years from having a child through surrogacy is a good rule to enforce? Altruistic surrogacy is not without its potential for problems but in a lot of cases it can be the only safe or biologically possible way loving parents (single or paired up) can give birth to a child.
And why, after you passed a historically significant bill last year toward fighting sexual discrimination, have you turned around and cheapened and degraded the relationships of gay people by refusing to sanction them?
I have some questions for you.
How dare you blatantly violate the promise to give community members equal treatment regardless of sexuality?
How dare you repeal the Civil Union Act without consulting any groups outside the Australian Christian Lobby?
How dare you make same-sex couples “register” their relationship like pet cats.
And how dare you claim that it is “a sensible compromise that retains rights.”
How dare you make a law that takes away a person’s right to have a child before you even know what kind of parent they could be?
How dare you make the inference that single people are lesser human beings, less capable of loving and nurturing a child? Seriously – how do you know that?
How dare you make assumptions about any of our personal relationships?
How dare you embarrass all of those Queenslanders who’ve spent our lives convincing people that we’re not all anti-progress noob philistines?
How dare you be allowed to run a population of more than four and a half million people from an insanely fucked up reprehensible bubble of bigotry and hatred and absence of understanding?
How dare you summon in people enough rage and despair to write ugly angry rants to you?
A few of those questions are obviously rhetorical but if you could get back to me on the rest of them I’d appreciate it.
Looking forward to your reply!
Best,
Suz Tucker
