John Howard - Equal Rights Matter

TOPICS: Community marketing. Gay community. Marketing to community. Marketing issues. Gay community rights. John Howard and the gay community. Equality. Gay community equal rights. Civil unions. Gay marriage. Sydney gay community marketing. Civil partnerships. Australian election. Gay community marketing issues. Australian gay community marketing issues. Companies targeting their marketing to the gay community need to understand the importance of equal rights.

Ian Johnson, Out Now
July 16, 2007


Politics is a funny business.

In my own home country of Australia, there is a federal election looming, and incumbent Prime Minister, John Howard, is in electoral trouble.

Latest polls suggest the newly resurgent Labor Party under Kevin Rudd is on course for an election win by November. The Australian community seems to have either stopped listening to John Howard, or have stopped believing him.

I need to declare my hand in this. John Howard and his party have never enjoyed my vote. There are various reasons, but at the top of my list is his constant failure to understand how the gay community views their own lives.

Lesbian and gay community members do not usually feel they are inferior members of the Australian community, and as equal community members, they feel entitled to equal rights under the law.

Yet Australian laws do treat lesbian and gay members of the community precisely as second class citizens in many important areas of the law.

This includes laws related to inheritance, civil unions, pensions, retirement superannuation planning and health matters. In Europe where I live these concepts of equality for the gay community are becoming the accepted social norm.

Members of the gay and lesbian community in Australia do not seek any special rights - only equal entitlements under Australian laws, just like every other Australian.

There has been an almost wholesale failure at government level to address the increasingly obvious need for all members of the Australian community to be treated equally, irrespective of sexuality. This, despite the apparent support amongst a majority of the Australian community for a change in equality laws for gays and lesbians.

I grew up in the bush and return to Glen Innes every year for a family visit, and can tell Howard in no uncertain terms that country Australia supports a 'fair go' for all, including gay and lesbian Australians. Honesty and respect are heartland Australian values - and the gay community is asking for nothing more than that.

Now might be the ideal time for Howard to become a new believer in gay community equality. He would gain more than he lost by repositioning to demonstrate respect for equality under the law for all Australians.

But given John Howard's track record on gay equality issues to date, I would not hold my breath.

A tipping point may however have already been reached with the highest circulation Sydney tabloid newspaper, Rupert Murdoch's Daily Telegraph, today publishing an opinion article that highlights how ludicrous the current gay community inequality laws in Australia really are.

The Daily Telegraph has traditionally been a supporter of John Howard's government, so its publication today of this scathing critique of Howard's policy on same-sex couples is noteworthy.

A little background for non-Australian readers: one of Australia's most esteemed citizens is High Court Judge, Justice Michael Kirby, who happens to be a gay man. He and his partner of almost 40 years are at an age where they would, like any other members of the community, like to look forward to their retirement together.

Justice Kirby recently asked the government to address the fact that were he to die his surviving partner would have no rights to access his superannuation pension funds - a right that would flow automatically were his partner female rather than male.

To suggest Justice Michael Kirby and his partner are somehow 'less equal' than other Australian community members would be preposterous.

The implications for companies that want to engage in gay community marketing are clear.

It is becoming more essential than ever to ensure that corporate policies are absolutely founded in equality for all staff - irrespective of sexuality - before embarking on major gay marketing activities.

If considering marketing to the gay community, you must assess your company's equality and diversity policies to ensure the gay community can respect your brand's attitudes to equality and diversity.

Only then might the gay community respect your company's gay marketing efforts. Companies still need to deliver great gay marketing to succeed but without equal treatment of gay staff and customers companies ought not expect gay marketing success.

Clearly the gay community in 2007 expects equality. Companies need to deliver nothing less when developing a gay community marketing strategy.

So too do political parties - something John Howard might like to consider as the Australian election draws ever nearer.

Here is an extract of the Daily Telegraph article on gay community equality. See if you think John Howard can expect unwavering support from the Murdoch press during the forthcoming Australian election campaign.

Gay partners have no standing
By Tory Maguire. July 16, 2007

WITH no disrespect to High Court judges, here's a hypothetical. Ageing bachelor judge meets 25-year-old Anna Nicole Smith lookalike. They marry and he retires into domestic bliss. Three years later said judge drops dead.

His new bride is entitled to a pension, on present figures (it will only go up) of $141,460 per year either for life or until she remarries.

Compare the hypothetical to the reality for Johan van Vloten.

Van Vloten has been living with High Court judge Michael Kirby for 38 years. In anyone's language that is a long-term relationship.

He has put up with a partner whose job requires long absences and the burning of super-tankers of midnight oil.

He has endured the indignity of public attacks on his partner's fidelity, in Federal Parliament no less.

And now van Vloten faces the prospect that if his partner dies before he does, he will not be entitled to the same financial benefits as our imaginary blondie.

Kirby recently wrote to the Howard Government asking that the imbalance be redressed.

A Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission report released last month found 58 federal laws that discriminated against homosexual couples when it came to financial arrangements and work entitlements.

The commission found that the simple act of changing the definition of de facto relationships would put an end to gay and lesbian Australians existing as "second-class citizens".

It's a tricky one for the Government, especially at the moment.

John Howard has been accused by some of his own MPs of dragging his feet on the issue and now the Government has run out of excuses, just months before what is going to be an incredibly tough election.

Who knows what the electoral implications of fixing this imbalance will be, but they are unlikely to be so dire as to serve as a good reason not to push ahead.

Anyone who sits down to think about it must recognise that in 2007 all Australians should be treated equally.

For gay community marketing and gay community equality and diversity help, speak with Out Now.

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