WARNING: This story might be distressing for some readers. If you are in distress, or if you or someone you know are being bullied, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Kids Helpline on 1800 338 881 for anonymous, 24/7 counselling and advice.
Welp, he’s done it.
Cartoonist / pen-and-paper shitposter Bill Leak is no longer merely provoking those he deems oversensitive – he’s started using mental health and youth suicide as a flat-out punchline.
In a comic posted earlier today, The Australian’s resident doodler “joked” that a vote on Australia becoming a republic would be as damaging to the mental health of young royalists as the debate before a same-sex plebiscite would have been to that of LGBTQIA youth.
via The Australian.
It appears Leak’s “humour” hinges on the faulty assumption that since no Wills and Kate fan would take their own life if we suggested losing our ties to the British royal family, no vulnerable Aussie kid would commit suicide over homophobic rhetoric either.
Of course, we only need to look into the very recent past to see that yes, discrimination against LGBTQIA youth can have utterly tragic outcomes. Yet, less than a month after 13-year-old Tyrone Unsworth took his own life after enduring homophobic bullying, Leak has used the issue of teen suicide as a cheap gag.
We’re not suggesting any hypothetical debate before a same-sex marriage plebiscite would necessarily result in bullying of the kind Unsworth received, but the circumstances of his death do not exist in a bubble removed from the broader public discourse.
You can turn Leak’s logic upon itself here, too. It’d be ridiculous if the debate on an Australian republic legitimised language that discriminated against monarchists, and it’d be even worse if their rights were voted into law by republicans, making them de facto second class citizens.
In fact, it’s this exact kind of bullshit that convinced equality advocates to oppose the plebiscite – it was feared that people would be emboldened to say horrific things in the interests of so-called parity. The plebiscite was canned, but obviously Leak still wants to have a pop.
If this comic was targeted at a group that wasn’t already statistically more likely to face abuse, perhaps it’d be less rank. But it’s not. It’s poking fun at one of Australia’s more vulnerable groups, which seems to be all Leak is capable of at this point, and we’re not pearl-clutching softies just because we think it’s fucked.
Source and photo: The Australian.
