The Equal Love people are holding a rally against homophobia in Melbourne on Saturday, at which Sir Ian McKellen will be speaking.
DISCRIMINATION SHALL NOT PASS!
He may or may not be disguised as a tramp.
And once again, despite being on their mailing list etc I have only heard of it this morning (Thursday), and from a commenter at this blog, not anything from the organisers. Seriously, they need to work on getting these things out there in time for people to actually plan to come.
UPDATE 14/5: EqualLove finally sent out an email about the rally. Today. Friday. THE DAY BEFORE.
Moved On 
An angle I hadn’t considered:
Of course a register is a poor substitute for full marriage equality, but surely it is better than no recognition at all? Is it fair to simply dismiss it as nothing better than what we give for our pets?
I don’t know, you pay rego for your marriage then come back and tell us how it made you feel.
Everyone who gets married pays a registration fee.
What is your point?
“Of course a register is a poor substitute for full marriage equality, but surely it is better than no recognition at all? “
The first part of that sentence is the important bit.
The register is not equality and is completely besides the point. It might be marginally better than the status quo, but so what? Gay people should settle for nothing less than full equality.
It’d be like if, when women were seeking the vote, we gave them a sort of separate vote that would be considered a little bit in relation to some electorates or something. It’s a nothing, and it’s ridiculous to expect gay people to accept it in place of equality.
All true.
No argument from me there.
Agree completely with Jeremy.
On top of that, the register is diversionary tool to try and distract people from the demand of full equality by trying to buy of some of the majority that support full equality into accepting some of compromise and putting full equality in the too hard basket to keep fighting for.
Also Jeremy – still no admission that you did indeed know about tomorrows rally at the time of writing about the last rally i see 😛
I did? I don’t remember that – it was months ago. They should’ve sent out reminders a fortnight in advance, close enough that people would be making plans, but not so far ahead of time that people won’t remember it.
Ha – it was March, and they did the same thing that time. I did know back then that one was coming up in May, but I hadn’t heard anything since so I forgot about it.
Look, I do follow these things and if they’re not reminding me in time for me to make plans, then how do they think they’ll go with people who are less concerned?
I’m just ribbing you Jeremy, I agree that reminders are necessary.
Two months with no word or notice is too long for people who actually have social lives, commitments etc. It should still be a good turn out because the rally’s being built through a bunch of different methods.
and Gandolf!
I don’t necessarily see it that way, but can understand why others do.
or villain magneto vs sanctity of marriage
which one will the media use …
oh wait they wont even report it
“or villain magneto vs sanctity of marriage”
Maybe his speech will be about how straight society will never fully accept LGBTI people and so they must be destroyed instead!
Muahahaha!
In other homophobia related news: what sort of idiot it going to buy Georges Rekers story about renting a rent boy to carry his luggage?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/anti-gay-preacher-george-rekers-took-rentboy-on-holiday-as-an-aide/story-e6frg6so-1225863027782
This is what really pisses me off: the rank amatuerism of these groups! Now because of the lack of advertising and forward planning there’ll be a small crowd which means the bigots will claim demonstrates the issue isn’t important. It’s the same with Conroy’s fundie filter. I love that people are prepared to initiate stuff and try to get their message out there, but FFS some basic rules of planning wouldn’t go astray!
OK Confessions ease up.
I agree with Jeremy that a reminder email should have been sent two weeks ago, and the lack of such reminder will reduce the numbers somewhat because, as i said, some people will have forgotten since March and made plans.
However it isn’t just the people on the mailing list that are expected to be at the rally as it’s being built by a number of other different methods.
Besides which, even if 50,000 people turn up the bigots will still claim it’s a real minority, you get more people to the football etc etc, blah blah blah.
Seen some of the coverage, anywhere between 400 people and 8,000 people turned up. All waving rainbow flags and singing R.E.S.P.E.C.T and wearing high heel boots. Every one of them. One of the reports didnt even mention Gandalf was there.
Could the coverage be a bit more accurate and a little less hystereotypical?
Jeremy: I’m assuming you went to hear McKellen and will provide a post with photos at some stage so we are spared coverage through the filter of the MSM lens?
I hope you do anyways.
Sadly, I couldn’t make it – that was why I was most annoyed by the late notice. We’d already made unchangeable plans.
If someone went and has blogged about it, I’m happy to update the post with a link to their coverage.
Saw one here –
http://www.benjaminsolah.com/blog/?p=2306
What a shame.
From the link it looks like a reasonable turnout despite the late notice.
Yeah i reckon there was about 5000. But then i’m not a very good judge of how many people are in a crowd…
Next rally is August 14. Hopefully EL will send out a more adequately timed email however if you have a diary you may want to enter the date…
The rally had been announced for months, since the last rally on March 13. But the addition of McKellen was only confirmed within a week of it happening.
Thanks for the plug.
Yeah, I know it’d been announced months back, but they didn’t publicise it in the weeks coming up to the event. Which, if they want better attendance, they should.
They have the facility to send out email reminders and smses – but they waited until the day before!