BY JENELLE DAVY
MELBOURNE — January 30 brought another Catholic Church attack on Melbourne's queer community: the Catholic Theological College hosted a forum titled "How to be cured from homosexuality".
Around 40 students, organised by the Victorian Cross-Campus Sexuality Network, protested against the forum. The students were joined by numerous other queer community groups, including the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, the Gay and Lesbian Support Group, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians And Gays and members of Rainbow Sash.
Around half the 100 attending the meeting were protesters. Father John Harvey and Dr Peter Rudegeair were heckled as they said that: "It's not the people, it's the homosexual acts that are evil", "The sole object of sexuality is procreation. Anything else is wrong" and "Queers are that way due to bad parenting and abuse".
Highlight's of the protest included a woman jumping up when her phone rang and exclaiming that it was: "God on the line with a need to cure his son Jesus" and a kiss-in by two couples: one lesbain, one gay. The gay couple were thrown out of the meeting, while the women were ignored.
As people left the meeting, many congratulated the protesters for sticking it out, telling us about the nonsense that they had sat through. We hope that such forums in the future may be around curing homophobia.
[Jenelle Davy is the queer officer at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).]
From Green Left Weekly, February 5, 2003.
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