"Its curtains for you, lad!"

Literally. I'm making curtains for two windows in our dining room and I know nothing about sewing short of which end of the needle makes your fingers bleed. We have had the fabric for ages. They need to get done and I'm too cheap to have someone else make them. So, it's curtains for me.

E's mother visited with us over Christmas and there was a burst of frantic activity to get the guest room ready. E made a very groovy headboard for the guest bed out of Black Walnut and upholstered with a cool pale blue silk velvet. I made the silk curtains (interlined and lined) for the two windows in the guest room.

Up to now I've never really felt that I had earned my Gay Card. I've made two pairs of curtains for the guest room, and hand sewn the french pleats in the shears for the dining room. I guess I've earned that card after all.

And after the dining room there is the master bedroom. Welcome 2006.

I just joined the American Civil Liberties Union

I've been mulling this over over for several months. I considered the fact that I'm not a US Citizen and I'm not eligible to vote in the US, and that US Citizens may not welcome my engagement in their political process.

Tough.

It comes down to this. I am a US Resident and what happens to civil rights in this country affects my life directly.

I wish I could say that the US had a leadership position in civil rights, but it doesn't. Under the Imperial Presidency of George W. Bush the US has moved from the mediocre middle to the back of the civil rights pack.

So far we've seen torture of prisoners, kidnapping and secret prisions for detainees, suspension of habeus corpus, minority indimidation in the federal election, illegal domestic spying, and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

I'm supporting the work of the ACLU in protecting the freedoms granted in the Constitution's Bill of Rights and extending rights to groups in society whose rights have been denied.

Here's an ad that the ACLU ran in The New York Times on December 29th, 2005:

I'm mystified why citizens here aren't marching in the streets demanding the impeachment of President Bush.

Western Muslims raping Western Women

Like most Australians I was shocked and apalled by the recent violence at Cronulla Beach and surrounding Sydney suburbs. Since then I've been digging into media reports to understand how the violence came about.

I came across this article by Sharon Lapkin, a former Australian Army officer and a post-graduate student, that discusses the broad trend of Islamic men raping Western Women.

There were several incidents here that caught my attention:

• A spate of gang rapes between 1998 and 2002 where Australian teenage girls were called "sluts" and "Aussie pigs" by their attackers.
• A December 2005 case where a Pakistani man justified the rape of his victims who "had no right to say no" because they were not wearing headscarfs.
• A Sydney lecture by a Lebanese Sheik who informed his audience that rape victims "had no one to blame but themselves" and that women who wear skimpy clothing "invite men to rape them".

More disturbing to me is this:

In Australia, when journalist Paul Sheehan reported honestly on the Sydney gang
rapes, he was called a racist and accused of stirring up anti-Muslim hatred. And
when he reported in his Sydney Morning Herald column that there was a high incidence of crime amongst Sydney’s Lebanese community, fellow journalist, David Marr sent him an e-mail stating, “That is a disgraceful column that reflects poorly on us all at the Herald.”

It is important to be sensitive to racial and religious bias, but is a reported can't even open the subject to examination something is fishy. More:

Keysar Trad, vice-president of the Australian Lebanese Muslim Association said the gang rapes were a “heinous” crime but complained it was “rather unfair” that the ethnicity of the rapists had been reported.

Journalist Miranda Devine reported during the same rape trials that all reference to ethnicity had been deleted from the victim impact statement because the prosecutors wanted to negotiate a plea bargain. So when Judge Megan Latham declared, “There is no evidence before me of any racial element in the commission of these offences,” everyone believed her. And the court, the politicians and most of the press may as well have raped the girls again.

While the last statement is certainly hyperbolic, washing racial, religious and cultural context out of these crimes doesn't help us understand their root causes or address them.

In Australia, Lebanese Christians have assimilated and become a respected part of our community. The Premier of Victoria is a Lebanese Christian as is the Governor Of New South Wales. However, Lebanese Muslims have encountered serious problems because of their refusal to accept our right to live our way of life. Nothing so clearly demonstrates that it is not an issue of race — but of culture.

I don't think it is an issue of culture at all. Lebanese Christians and Muslims share a culture but they are different religions with different views of their new home. Criminal behavior can not be tolerated from anyone and it is in the interests of Lebanese Muslim Community to take steps to avoid lawbreaking and any extremist religious exhortations that encourage it.

Gays and Lesbians valued as people but no rights

In Australia, Liberal Coalition (Conservative) MPs Mal Washer, Judi Moylan, Petro Georgiou, and Warren Entsch have woken up and smelled the coffee. They belatedly argue that the country:

"...is being 'left behind' by refusing to legally recognise homosexual relationships."

Perhaps it is the sight of South Africa outpacing them that gave them the needed encouragement. Their action is in direct contravention of Prime Minister John Howard's stated policy refusing to acknowledge gay marriage.

In a response to the dissident MPs, Liberal Coalition MP David Fawcett trotted out the tired old chestnut that recognizing gay marriages would "undermine the family". In a piece in The Australian, he pointed out that even civil union style proposals must be opposed under the federal gay marriage ban enacted prior to the last federal election.

Here's a sample of his moronic ravings about civil unions:

"We shouldn't be working in that direction. We need to value them as people, but I don't believe it's a necessity in terms of families in Australia to recognise them," he said.

If you have to say something about valuing a group as people its clear that you don't, and likely never have. The language here is important. It is one thing to value someone as a person and quite another to acknowledge them as a person with all the rights and responsibilities that go with it. It's hard to escape the thought that the Australian government doesn't see gays and lesbians as people and that it conveniently makes the upholding of their human rights a moot point.

This is offensive. It sounds like the kind of argument you might have heard from a Southern US politician when black voting rights and interracial marriage were on the political stage. But wait, there's more lunacy ahead:

"I think we need to have some very clear incentives to support and encourage marriage and family - that is for the long-term benefit of Australia - and if we grant (gay people) status and privileges across the board, then there's no longer anything that's an incentive or an encouragement for people to work at a marriage," Mr. Fawcett said.

The first part of this statement looks on the surface to be a fusion of the standard 'preserve-the-marriages-we-have-before-adding-new-ones' and 'marriage-for-raising-children-as-it-always-has-been' rhetoric. The former vaguely admits that marriage is work and futilely tries to convince us that it's the government’s role to play both matchmaker and marriage counselor. The latter turns to dust with the legions of married couples who, in an exercise of their free will, have no intention of having children. There is also a whiff of Anglo-minority terror there that somehow they need more straight white people to breed to try and at least keep pace with non-Anglo immigration.

The second part of the statement is where Mr. Fawcett's train of thought leaves not only its metaphorical rails, but also our reality based universe. Without making any case for how or why, he proposes that granting gays and lesbian the rights to civil marriage somehow removes any incentive for straight people to work at their own marriages. This is what polite society calls a “preposterous fiction” and I call a steaming load of crap.

The only scenarios where civil marriage for gays and lesbians could remove any incentive for people to work at their current marriage are:

1. Closeted gay men who have married women
2. Closeted lesbians who have married men

I think there is a strong case to be made that these faux marriages wouldn’t exist in the first place if the stigma of being gay and lesbian was gone and civil marriages for gays and lesbians were legitimized. More importantly, civil marriage for gays and lesbians would increase the number of people who could and would create strong marriages. The result would be a net increase in the number of people who are both willing and able to marry.

And, Mr. Fawcett to the contrary, that is good for all of us.

The War on Christmas (Fruit Cake)

I start thinking about Christmas in August. It's sick, I know, but I can't help it. In Sydney, Christmas happens at the hottest time of the year. When it gets hot I'm wired to think about Christmas. At that time one of the things I start pining for is a slice of Christmas Cake and by the time it gets to December I'm well primed.

I've learned to keep it quiet though. If you want to see someone's terrified "you-are-a-bug-f*ck-crazy-man" stare, tell someone how much you are looking forward to making and eating a Christmas fruit cake. I kid you not. As a test try dropping each of the following statements in public and monitor the reaction you get to each:

1. I believe capital punishment is an effective punishment and deterrent.
2. I believe fruit cake is delicious.

It's a good bet that that there would be some debate on 1 and you'll get the crazy-freak look and be dismissed out of hand on 2. The real War on Christmas (TM) is the shameless swift-boating of Christmas fruit cake.

Somehow the collective consiousiouness of the US has been poisoned on the subject of fruit cake. He Who Must Be Obeyed tells me that the anti-fruit cake movement was helped in large part by a running gag on Johnny Carson. Something along the lines of there being only one fruit cake ever made that has been passed from person to terrified person without ever being opened. This from a country where they will eat just about anything fried if it will sit still long enough.

The key problem seems to be the perception that fruit cakes are heavy and dry (I'm going to ignore commercial fruit cakes for reasons that will become apparent in a moment). If true, this suggests a bad recipe, poor execution or far too timid a hand in adding alcohol to both the pre-soaking fruit mixture and to the finished cake.

Fruit cakes are not fluffy, girly, blouse-wearing sponge cakes. Fruit cakes are darker in color, denser in texture, and richer in flavor. Real fruit cakes are filled with so much alcohol that sending one across a state line is technically rum running. In short, fruit cake is a Man's cake.

Fruit Cake is the cake of Johnny Cash, Henry Rollins, and Bon Scott.

Another problem with fruit cake may be the amount that folks in the US think they need to eat. The size of portions here is massive. Ask any Aussie that's given a jar of Vegemite to someone in the US and they will be able to tell you about "The Vegemite Effect." That's when, without ever tasting it before, they slather a thick coat of Vegemite on a piece of bread and take a bite.

The reaction and resulting facial expression is one that can only be reliably replicated by tricking someone into chowing down on a full baby diaper. But I digress. The point is that folks here automatically assume that you need to eat a lot of everything when just a little really does go a long, long way. With a fruit cake, just a finger sized slice is the ticket.

Just because no one here knows how to make a good fruit cake doesn't mean a) it isn't possible or b) make it Satan's premier tool on earth (see the collected work of FOX 'personality' Bill O'Reilly if you want to see a bravura perfomance as Satan's Premier Tool).

In my family we have a recipe handed down from grandmothers immemorial and it is very good. I made it a few days ago and while I was shopping for ingredients somone asked me what I was making and, foolishly, I told them. They gave me the bug-f*ck-crazy-man look and backed away. Very slowly.

Done good, played strong - but no vote.

The latest figures say that one in every twenty Australian citizens live overseas. That makes me one of the million or so Australians living and working outside Australia. Academics are writing papers on the flow of people away from Australia, taking their expertise and knowledge with them. Because of the limited career opportunities at home, many Australians have long careers overseas, marry and have children abroad.

Previously, if an Australian took another citizenship so that they could be guaranteed of staying with the life and family they built abroad, they were forced to surrender their Australian Citizenship. Net result? Australians good enough to make it overseas, arguably some our best, were not allowed to come home.

After intense lobbying from many parties, including the tireless Southern Cross Group, the Australian Government finally amended the Australian Citizenship Act of 1948 to allow Australians to have dual citizenship. Without this change it I would have been trapped in Green card renewal every ten years for the rest of my life. Now the senate is holding and inquiry into the new Australian Citizenship Bill 2005. If you are an Australian living outside Australia, please make a submission to the inquiry so your voice can be heard.

There is still a sting in the tail, though. Once you have been living away from Australia for more than three years you are removed from the electoral role and no longer permitted to vote in Australian elections. I found this out a few elections ago when the offical at the Australian Consulate I'd asked to send me a postal vote gave me the news.

There is hope on the horizon with the review by the Senate Committee that recommended the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 should be amended to assist expatriate Australians to maintain their electoral enrolment:

• Australian citizens moving or living overseas should be entitled to register as an "Eligible Overseas Elector" if they left Australia in the previous three years, or have returned to Australia (for any length of time) in the past three years; and they intend to resume residence in Australia within six years of their departure; and

• Australian citizens who have been living overseas for six years should be entitled to renew their enrolment as an eligible overseas elector if they have returned to Australia (for any length of time) within the last three years.

This recommendation is explicitly supported by Government senators. The Committee has also recommended that voting for overseas Australians should continue to be non-compulsory.

The good news is that under this proposed standard, my visits home to see my family would allow me to remain an eligible elector. The bad news is that there is no timetable for drafting the amendments to make this happen.

Riots in Sydney's Southern suburbs

Rioting in your home city is a hard thing to watch. It seems ironic that it started at Cronulla beach. I've always thought of beaches as places where class, ethnicity and any other labels we assign each other lose a lot of their power.

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald has surfers at Cronulla apologising for their part in the riots. Its heartening to see the local surfing community take responsibility for their part and reaffirm that beaches are for everyone.

"The beach is for all to use and enjoy, with everyone showing respect and consideration for each other. Our sincere hope is that some good can come out of this unfortunate episode, with all groups within our society displaying more tolerance and greater willingness to engage each other as Australians."

Perhaps this photo was originally from Iraq and with it some Photoshop wag raises a good point. By engaging with the United States in Iraq, Prime Minister Howard has helped make the world less safe and created an environment of fear and distrust at home.

"Poor fella, my country" indeed.

I really am so terribly, terribly sorry...

Like a split personality that can't be suppressed or exised, the Gay Curmudgeon part of me just won't shut up. I've been putting up with it for years.

Now it's your turn. Sorry.