I’m not a member of the gay community at all, but I’m struggling to understand this decision.
It’s not “the police” that did this - it’s an ex boyfriend who also happens to be a copper. I don’t believe there’s any insinuation that the NSW police haven’t done their jobs properly investigating the murders (someone please feel free to correct me if I’ve got this wrong), so why ask them not be inclusive by marching this year?
If a bricklayer murdered his ex boyfriend and their new lover the same way, would they ask all brickies (or tradies) to not march too? Inclusion is as much about not tarring everyone with the same brush as it is about tolerance and acceptance, and I feel the gay community could be making a misstep here.
Again, I’m not a member of the gay community, so I definitely can’t know what people who are, are feeling about this. Just observing that, from the outside, their anger and distress appear to be misdirected in this particular instance.
My original comment was pretty clear on the fact that I was trying to understand an alternate perspective. Not history. History tells me about events - it doesn’t help me understand why those events make people feel a certain way.
But, by all means, feel free to continue playing the exasperated victim card, and making assumptions about the other person in the conversation.
At least that way, you get to keep blaming everyone else for not making the effort to understand, rather than - you know - actually taking the time to help them understand.
Brickies and tradies don’t have a history of murdering members of the community the way the cops do - especially in nsw.
Besides, a tradie rarely marches AS a tradie. They march as themselves. Cops are really the only ones who constantly insist they must march as their occupation.
I can see your points but, based on the reporting so far, it seems the accused didn’t murder them because he’s an institutionally intolerant cop, did he? It seems it had nothing to do with the uniform he wore for a job.
Also, I’m not at all saying the NSW police don’t have a shocking history of how terribly they’ve treated this particular community. But isn’t the purpose of the cops marching in uniform in the parade to demonstrate their willingness to change, starting with a public display of tolerance and inclusion?
Like I said before, I can’t honestly know how the community feels about all this. I’m just confused as to why they’re aiming their anger at the cops, when this seems to be anything other than a hate crime perpetrated by the police themselves.
It’s been repeatedly brought up how uncomfortable and to many inappropriate it is to have uniformed officers march at Pride events. And every. Damned. Time the cops have thrown an absolute shitfit and forced the issue.
Does that sound like a ‘public display of tolerance and inclusion’? Railroading over the top of a community for their own ends? The more they push, the more it looks like Sending A Message.
Interesting - that context isn’t presented to us here in Melbourne, at least not that I’ve seen. If that’s the case, then this starts to make more sense for sure. Thanks for explaining it.
Well the gay community whatever that means is not a monolith. So while some of us rage at the police, others have a different attitude. Unfortunately these online forums often become echo chambers and if you don’t have the “correct” opinion good luck to you.
As a gay person I’ll admit I’m neither here nor there about pride, but I do see locking police out of pride as unhelpful and does nothing good to foster a relationship with the police as an institution. Police has thousands of employees and to lock out some based on the actions of others is some kind collective punishment/guilt that would not not necessarily be done to other groups. Many institutions supporting pride or actively involved in it would have a checkered history, and probably stuff that still happens today. If we really zoom in at a micro level, I wouldn’t be surprised if some pride participants haven’t demonstrated homophobia themselves at some point in their lives.
The point is if the price of admission is a squeaky clean history and angelic behavior I rather suspect many would fall short of the standard and not just Police.
People say the Police are virtue signalling, which I actually can’t stand so on that level I relate. But there is some hypocrisy here, because that is probably true of all their corporate sponsors as well. Big corporates like Coles, Qantas or Optus would not be involved if it would seriously hurt their bottom line.
Hmm, thing is no one is locking individuals-who-happen-to-be-cops out of Pride. They just don’t want cops marching as The Police Force. Many consider it pinkwashing normally, on the heels of yet another queer couple murdered by a cop? Yeeeeahhhh nah.
Like I said, multiple sponsors and organizations pink wash and virtue signal, sounds like more than just Police need to be excluded if that’s the criteria for exclusion.
I think a clear distinction needs to be drawn also. It wasn’t a policeman that murdered a gay person. They weren’t carrying out an order of the institution or acting on the institutions behalf. They are a person that (allegedly) murdered someone that just happened to be a Police.
As for locking out you know what I meant, asking someone not to show up in Police uniform is in effect asking someone to suppress part of their identity. “yeah you can come, but only if you don’t show that your a member of the Police”. Whatever faults the Police have currently, do people honestly think society would function without the Police? I just think some folks need a reality check.
The fact is the police for many is similar to being a nurse or a doctor, where it is very much a calling due to the demands and pressure of the job. And this is why so many in the Police are just absolutely sickened by this murder because it goes against their entire ethos on top of the murder itself.
The truth is the guy was a nutter. And even if he wasn’t part of Police he was probably going to go off the deep end sooner or later no matter what his profession was.
That being said, I do have some concerns about gun access control within the Police force and some questions do need to be answered there.
At the end of the day Pride is neither here or there for me, I don’t have much skin in the game. But it does annoy me somewhat that people aren’t being entirely rational and are looking for someone to blame, easy answers and someone to point the finger at. Life’s often not fair, bad things happen to good people and no, it’s not all the fault of the Police, this murder included.
There is nuance and context to everything and throwing the baby out with the bath water is in my view a misdirected overreaction.
It's wrong and harmful to lock any group out of Pride celebrations. Police are not the enemy of gay people and by and large have done a lot to help protect LGBTQ andr respond to helping persecute people that commit hate crimes.
Pride is supposed to be about inclusion and acceptance. If we gay people want acceptance from society we need to be big enough to allow acceptance to all other groups also. Pride isn't just a "gay" thing. It's about all people everywhere being proud of their adulthood and their ability to rise above conflict and get along.
It’s not solely about the murder; the NSW Police were already unpopular participants. Homosexuality was illegal within the lifetime of many people attending Mardi Gras and the police were the ones enforcing that. They are still seen as the enemy by some and events like this do nothing to improve that image.
I haven’t been following it super-closely, but this reads like the SMH is trying to drum up homophobic controversy where there wasn’t any.
My understanding was that the murders were commited by a spurned lover (who happened to be a Police Officer) as opposed to some systemic homophobia within the NSW Police that led to the murders.
No doubt the NSW Police could be more receptive in general, but I don’t know if they’d have treated the case any differently if it was a heterosexual officer who was spurned and committed murder - probably more of an indictment on the awfulness of the force than any particularly political or social bent.
I’m definitely lacking some history here (read through the article of course) but my instinct is that it would be best to allow them to continue marching provided those marching have not themselves committed these acts. Perhaps it needs a reframing: the NSW Police segment of the march should not be about bringing positive publicity to the force as a whole, but to celebrate those in the force who are part of the community and make them feel welcome.
In the context of my reply to your previous comment I used it in the sense that the editorial was not arguing that the police should not participate because of the criminal act of ‘one bad apple’ but neither do the editors call for a permananet ban on police participating in future Mardi Gras.
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