A Review of the Pride March Against Trump and Turnbull - Saturday 10/6/17

On Saturday, the 10th of June 2017, I made the mistake of attending the Adelaide chapter of the “Pride March Against Trump and Turnbull”, hosted by “Community Action Against Homophobia”. This was my first, and most likely last rally/protest because acts of protest like these are always pointless, aimless and never accomplish anything meaningful. I was joined by a couple of new friends and a high school friend who are all members of a political Facebook group chat, which I was recently added to. As the rally and subsequent march endured, I kept a few keen notes of the happenings at the event.

Upon arriving at the rally, held outside Parliament House, I couldn’t help but notice the turnout was minimal at best. There were no more than 100 attendees initially, meaning that everyone else that arrived thereafter was late; as you’d expect from a leftist caucus. The total for the Adelaide chapter was comparatively insignificant to the Sydney chapter, based on the forecast their Facebook event had provided me, where you find that 1,600 people supposedly attended and 5,200 were interested. This smacks of poor organisation, low interest and little awareness raised for their cause. As time ticked by the turnout never grew to any more than 200 people. I find this to be quite comical as these people most likely spent the whole week organising the event.

The day contained various moments of irony wherein members of the “Socialist Alternative Adelaide” group were selling pins and their dangerous ideology to all other attendees. I found it hilarious that they would act in such a contradictory manner considering they emphatically support an ideology which directly opposes capitalism. The endgame of socialism is communism; the complete absence of currency. Not to mention the march finished directly outside the Apple Store in Rundle Mall. Perhaps they could have organised this aspect of the march better? I believe it’s this indoctrination and misleading, the history behind the ideology and the heavy focus on group identity that is so repulsive to many people. When you do the research, you will find that the notorious dictators like Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong were all socialists and communists; they had left-leaning politics.

Not only did the rally and subsequent short-lived march lack the necessary energy, vigour and enthusiasm needed to attract and maintain the focus of onlookers – keep in mind, these are the kinds of people that are likely to have panic attacks when going food shopping for themselves - but so did the speeches delivered on the steps of Parliament House. The orators utilised a megaphone which was barely comprehendible at the best of times due to its inadequate clarity and volume. This seemingly defiant and foolproof plan by them was soon drowned out by presumably Christian protesters who employed loud speakers blasting speeches from unspecified Christian preachers. The overbearing volume and nature of the talks, accompanied by music included in the talks rendered the megaphone useless. I found it fitting that the megaphone would be drowned out considering the speakers were socialists, and socialist countries typically aren’t as advanced as capitalist countries. This is due to the lack of variety and competition on the market in socialist countries. Without competition, the technological ideals are deprived and there is minimal effort made to one-up each other, like we see with Apple and Samsung smart phones. During the speeches, the orators didn’t provide any supplementary evidence to bolster any of their extraordinary assertions. A few being that Trump, who now became the focus instead of Turnbull, is a racist, sexist and homophobic bigot. Why the sexist and racist parts came into the equation when it was a homophobia march, I have no idea. People might perceive him this way because he stands his ground and doesn’t back down from anyone, regardless of who they are or their gender. Additionally, he’s not afraid to be politically incorrect or a jerk.

As I foresaw, when the march commenced, the marchers began to chant and bellow their vacuous propaganda pieces. The chants included: "Gay, straight, black or white, marriage is a civil right!", "Hey hey, ho ho, homophobia has got to go!", likewise with “Hey hey, ho ho, transphobia has got to go!", “Racist, sexist, anti-gay - Donald Trump, go away!", "Aboriginal lands, always was, always will be!" First and foremost, I agree with them; marriage is a civil right. But what’s your point, exactly? Within the chant, they didn’t include themselves or demand inclusion into that civil right. Quite a low-intellect chant, if you ask me. Secondly, I don’t think homophobia or transphobia is as rampant of an issue as people believe it is. No one walks down the street and sees two men holding hands or a trans person and start to freak out or metaphorically shake in their boots. Yes, it’s a reality that certain groups of people, e.g. Christians, don’t like the LGBT community because it opposes their religious beliefs, but this notion that there is a widespread phobia of the LGBT community is utterly absurd. I doubt that the Australian government can do anything to stop transphobia and homophobia; they could release a myriad of public service announcements, but that isn’t guaranteed to change someone’s beliefs. The only way to indefinitely accomplish this, in my eyes, would be to execute anyone who thinks that way, and that's too extreme in a free country like Australia. As I’ve stated on numerous occasions, left-leaning people are the most intellectually lazy people on the planet. How do I know this? These people don’t do their research. I mentioned this in a previous article, wherein I explained how and why Donald Trump isn’t any of the buzzwords that people gleefully assign him. He has a documented history of fighting for the LGBT community, as well as demonstrating numerous acts of kindness towards women and the black community. This chant was also quite thoughtless considering Donald Trump wasn't even in the country, and a chant made my a couple hundred angry people isn't going to make him leave or resign, despite him having another 4 years in office. Moreover, their guilt about occupying what was once Aboriginal lands started to shine through during the event. Even though the rally was specifically focused on homophobia, this was an irrelevant issue to raise. Finally, if you feel so guilty about living on Aboriginal lands, you could just leave? I mean, there is nothing impeding you from doing so.

I had various criticisms and gripes with the event. Firstly, their insistence on pushing group identity instead of individualism, as most left-leaning people do. This is and always will be a turn-off for me; this is a violation of individual liberties, freedom of choice, association and is adhering to mob mentality, which is everything I dislike. The event’s poor organisation was risible, but since most attendees were only there for an hour and a half before their awry disbandment, I can’t help but feel my time was wasted due to the fact I didn’t have any subsequent plans in the city. I thought the event would’ve lasted much longer, like the rallies and marches I’ve seen take place in America in YouTube videos, for example, where they last 4-5 hours. This gripe is rather trivial, but I found so many attendees repulsive; multi-coloured hair and half shaved heads, accompanied with needless amounts of piercings and t-shirts depicting Marxism in a positive light. Marxism and other left-leaning political stances and beliefs are very mob-focussed; socialism advocates for the community to control the means of production, distribution and flow of currency, instead of corporations and businesses that employ you and are eligible to reward you better since business, in particular, multi-national corporations under capitalism are wealthier than what a socialist community could ever be. It is socialism and its adherents that are blind lead and blind follow; its history is plagued with failure, leaving its citizens dying of starvation, malnourishment and abject poverty. So, given this, why do these people so adamantly support this ideology and present themselves in such a manner? Postmodernism. It’s their criticisms and scepticisms of what modern beauty, attractiveness and social structures should be that fuels this worldview. I fall on the side of if something that has lasted this long and has allowed people like Ben Carson to become as successful as he is, despite growing up in a poor neighbourhood, why do we need to change it? Yes, capitalism has its problems, but it’s vastly superior to socialism or communism. It is their insipid and vacuous chanting that I always find cringeworthy, and their juvenile methods of chalking the pavement as a vehicle to disseminate their message of how the feel they’ve been treated unfairly - the chalk will soon wash away and the event will be elapsed and erased from the public’s memory – that need to be dispelled of instantly. If they really wanted to make an impact, draping the city with coherent posters, choosing a more populated area of the city to occupy or march to, upscaling the audio system, articulating convincing arguments bolstered by facts, quotes and dates of when they were spoken, and finally, marching on a weekday instead of the weekend, considering most people aren’t in the city at noon on a Saturday, would do the trick. But of course, they won’t; they will continue to throw their toys out of the pram, demanding they get their way and blame anyone but themselves for their failures and shortcomings.

It was evident that the Christian protesters were easily getting under the skin of the rallygoers, which isn’t hard to do. All they were doing was yelling pro-God sentiments and sounding off about how they view homosexuality as a sin, and that they must seek the path that leads to God. Triggering snowflakes is simple: just assume their gender or engage in politically incorrect speech and their urge to start throwing punches, or y’know, cry, will be as clear as day. This was the only time they were enthusiastic about what they were doing. It’s just as well that there were police monitoring the event, or an altercation would’ve been imminent and a lefty cry-baby would’ve been rushed to hospital since.

I have serious doubts that this act of protest perpetrated against the Australian government will achieve any of their desired outcomes or alter the public’s opinion. Protesting is now viewed as a pointless activity perpetrated by unemployed cry-babies who will protest literally anything. The event lasted for a generous hour and a half, and the march traversed a few hundred metres at most; from Parliament House to the vicinity of Rundle Mall’s Apple Store. Onlookers hadn’t the slightest clue of the march’s significance, which left them without a care in the world for these protesters. They were a mere nuisance; a roadblock that would soon dissipate. If the organisers wanted to make an impact, the event should’ve lasted longer. I overheard a couple who I would assume were out shopping say “Oh, I think it’s a gay pride march.” They weren’t aware it was a political statement against Trump or Turnbull.

What will help their cause, though, is providing a strong, well-structured argument for why gay marriage should be legal. It’s crucial to avoid talking points such as “marriage is a civil right”, because not only is that obvious, but isn’t providing a reason for why it should happen. One point I thought of recently was that if gay marriage became legal, the gay community would finally shut up for once, kind of like what America had hoped for with racism and electing Obama, although race relations worsened under his watch. Furthermore, focussing on the benefits of the new legislation, as this will only stand to benefit them. With the latest news of newly-married gay couples suing Christian bakeries for refusing to bake a wedding cake due to their religious beliefs, acts of selfishness like this will drastically hurt the gay community’s argument and reputation if this is how they’re going to act when they get their way. There should always be some legal basis for a case as controversial as those; you shouldn’t sue someone if there’s no law in place, e.g. it’s illegal to refuse service to someone just because they’re gay. If you want respect for your sexuality, you should also respect the religious views of others. My theory is live and let live; find another bakery and move on. If Muslims bakeries can refuse service to gay couples and not be sued, then why should Christian bakeries? It's true that in recent times I have grown less fond of gay marriage because of the way Christians get treated by the gay community, as stated above, but I’m not totally opposed to allowing them to marry.

I noticed an absence of consistency throughout the duration of the rally. This was self-evident very early on when the speeches were delivered. The focus was placed early on Turnbull’s alleged homophobia as he’s in favour of implementing a plebiscite, as you would in a democratic society, but as the speeches passed, all the light began to shine on Trump. Speakers then started to berate him with slurs and buzzwords, although he’s not any of the claims. As the march began, the crowd began to chant “Aboriginal lands, always was, always will be!” I’m sorry, but since when was this a rally in defence of Aboriginal people? I just don’t understand why they couldn’t keep the focus consistent; it’s mind-boggling.

Although it wasn’t clear what exactly the crowd was protesting, I was able to extrapolate that the main disagreement was how Turnbull is in favour of enacting a plebiscite; a nation-wide vote on if gay marriage should go ahead, and how they interpreted that as being homophobic. I would hope that in a democratic society, the way arguments would be settled would be through a vote, and that we would continue to use this method in the future. Yes, the plebiscite is expensive, but that doesn’t equate to being homophobic.

Since the Sydney chapter’s Facebook event contained more details about the march, than Adelaide’s, I have pasted the event details below, which you can read below and my following critique of their message:

“In the past decades the LGBTI community has forced society to recognise us, governments to begrudgingly accept us and the majority of the population to welcome us. Now however we face a counter offensive to the movement for equality, not just here in Australia but across the world. The election of Donald Trump in the US marked a significant shift, this ultra right wing bigot has emboldened every homophobe who looked upon the achievements of equality and civil rights with disgust. Since coming into power he has rolled back guidance to schools protecting transgender students, appointed Tom Price, a hard line vocal opponent of LGBTI rights as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Eric Fanning the first openly gay sectary of the Army have been replaced by Mark Green who called being transgender "a disease." Here in Australia encouraged by both Donald Trump, the frenzied right wing of his party and his own conservative values Malcolm Turnbull has been a barrier to equality, derailing the move towards marriage rights with the plebiscite con and standing behind the assault upon the safe schools program. Meanwhile in other parts of the world our community faces a much direr situation, in Chechnya the government, under the protection of notorious homopobe (sic) Vladimir Putin and the indifference of Western governments, is unleashing a wave of extreme violence against the LGBTI community. We aren't going to take this lying down! Activists in the US have called a for a Equality March for Unity and Pride to bring together tens of thousands in opposition to Trump. In response Community Action Against Homophobia here in Sydney, and other community groups across the country, are organise protests to take a stand not only against Trump but just as importantly against our own bigoted government here in Australia. Let's get together, let's make some noise, let's show them that they can't trample on our rights and get away with it!”

Okay, wow. There was a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes in there. I will now provide a quick summary of what was said. I agree with them that the LGBT community should be recognised for the people that they are, and that they have a valid point here. These activists seem to be under the impression that Trump is a super right-wing Nazi who wholeheartedly hates them. Yet again, not true. When you do your research, you will find that Hillary Clinton is marginally more right-wing than what Donald Trump is. Furthermore, if someone is a homophobe, which as I’ve stated previously, isn’t as widespread an issue as people believe it to be, they’re going to be homophobic anyways with Trump as their president. These people have also misinterpreted Trump’s message and who he really is as a person. An important detail to point out here too, is that Mark Green withdrew his name from the position, and that Trump may have chosen him because he’s confident in his ability to perform at an elevated level. They also phrase it as though Trump knew Fanning was gay and felt the need to replace him because of the fact. No, Fanning was assigned the position under Obama. With a new president, it’s only natural to change things around to their liking, and assign people who they’re confident with. Moreover, although it’s not politically correct, transgenderism is a mental illness. Mental illness is defined as a condition which causes serious disorder (a state of confusion) in a person’s behaviour or thinking. A transgender person suffers from what is called gender dysphoria, formerly gender identity disorder – a state of confusion with one’s gender identity, meaning a trans person with that condition is mentally ill because they are confused about their body, and lack the normal mental state that cis-gendered people have. A metaphor I tend to use is by thinking of transgenderism as having a cold – when you have a cold, you get sick and don’t function as you should. Dysphoria means a state of unease, anxiety and dissatisfaction with life; anxiety is a mental health disorder too, the same as transgenderism. Gender identity that doesn't correlate with the biological sex is an error, people don't like to accept that but it's the truth. Transgenderism is also basically body dysphoria, a mental illness involving obsessive focus on a perceived flaw in appearance. If transgenderism and transsexualism was normal, then the surgically-made vagina wouldn't try to close itself up. I believe in this politically correct climate, people are often bullied for speaking the truth and feel as though they can't say what they think, despite having the right to freedom of speech. Although more often than not, it’ll hurt other people’s feelings, this trend should change.

I’m not surprised by this next part, as the left tends to lie a lot, but the truth about the safe schools program is that Malcolm Turnbull called for a review of the program, after concerns grew about the purpose of the program. Tony Abbott described the program as “social engineering” whilst then calling for funding to be scrapped. Whilst I don’t agree with social engineering: promoting an ideology onto young children and skewing their societal and personal views, e.g. if the child isn’t naturally gay, the ideology, and to an extent, the program could change their views. Let the children discover themselves naturally, and not through means of a government program. Another criticism came from South Australian senator Cory Bernardi who said school children are being "prematurely sexualised" by the program. Queensland MP George Christensen also described the program as "paedophile grooming", whilst then claiming it recommended pornographic content, sex shops and sex clubs to school children. Given extraordinary claims such as these, I think a review of the program would be sensible, just to make sure that it’s not damaging or indoctrinating innocent children. I don’t agree that the program should be defunded, though. It should be repealed without the ideology, as that seems like the right thing to do here. In my eyes, a program that stops young children from being bullied is a good program, but if there is an attached ideology, then scrap it. We must remember that it’s just a review, if nothing is found to be damaging, then the program should go remain. It’s always good to be cautious and careful!

In the second to last paragraph, they write about Russia and Vladimir Putin. One thing that is paramount to express, is the fact that Russia isn’t traditionally a western country, meaning they won’t be as progressive as countries like Australia, America and Canada. I agree it’s wrong to treat gays poorly, but, same-sex activity has been legal since 1993, changing one’s gender has been legal since 1997, LGBT people can serve in the Russian military and homosexuality was declassified as a mental illness in 1999. It’s quite obvious they’re either lying when they describe Russia and Putin as this extremely anti-gay country and leadership, or they haven’t done their research. Just like the Trump-Putin collusion lie, this assertion also has no evidence to it.

It’s quite telling how they didn’t mention how the LGBT community is treated in Saudi Arabia or other Islamic countries, though. Saudi Arabia is arguably the most conservative country on this planet; women aren’t allowed to drive, vote to the same extent as men, were first allowed to compete at the Olympic Games in 2012 and amongst many other things, can’t go anywhere without a male chaperone. The most severe punishment for homosexuality activity under the barbaric and outdated law system, Sharia Law, which is enforced without mercy in Saudi Arabia, is death.

Additionally, Putin isn’t promoting the violence against gays, it’s the anti-gay citizens who are doing it on their own accord. Yes, Putin should defend the gay community and investigate the violence, but it’s intellectually dishonest to place the blame entirely on Putin. Distributing material depicting same-sex relations to children is banned because it’s a conservative country. They claim it is 'protecting children' by doing so, which I agree with since it’s phrased as ‘same-sex material’, which could mean anything, including pornography. I don’t think children should be allowed to view pornography. Indoctrinating children who aren’t naturally gay is wrong, and they should discover their sexuality on their own.

Since Russia isn’t traditionally western, same-sex couples and households headed by same-sex couples are ineligible for the legal protections available to opposite-sex couples, and there are currently no laws prohibiting discrimination regarding sexual orientation. Transgender people are allowed to change their legal gender following sex reassignment surgery, however, there are currently no laws prohibiting discrimination against these people, and recent laws could allow for discrimination against transgendered people. This is something I don’t agree with, since they should be allowed to have the same discrimination rights as heterosexual people. But, if the LGBT community is going to try and change how things are in Russia, they should also advocate for change in Islamic countries, where gays are treated much worse and have very little rights compared to Russia and western countries like Australia, America and Canada.