homophobia amongst AFL supporters

Homophobia amongst AFL supporters (c) Melina Magdalena (2011) Dear Mr Clough and others, I turned on Radio National yesterday in the middle of your documentary "Cheers", about AFL supporters. I listened for a few minutes, but felt disgusted and upset and had to turn it off shortly thereafter. Therefore my comments must be taken in light of the fact that I did not have the whole context of the program. What I heard that upset me, was comments from a supporter about abusing the cheer squads of other teams, and about abusing the players of his own supported team. Not only did he comment about his own behaviour (implying that this behaviour is shared by all AFL fans no matter which team they support), but there was also some recorded sound from his actual "cheering" and "jeering" during a football match. I heard him say something to the effect of "I like you too, mate - you can fuck my sister", which was bad enough, but prior to this, he talked proudly and boldly about calling players paedophiles and poofters in the same breath, as though all "poofters" are automatically "paedophiles" as well. As a queer person myself, I am sensitive to homophobic comments. This upset me in two ways. As long as I live in a culture where it is acceptable to use homophobic comments to incite footballers to be stronger, more aggressive and hence more "masculine", the level of homophobia is intolerable and unacceptable. Secondly, the fact that this homophobia is expressed so "naturally" does not mean that it should not be countered openly. The fact that his homophobia is simply part of a wider cultural context and was not concentrated within a narrow window of countering homophobia specifically does not make it any less hurtful and dangerous. I don't know whether the homophobia was commented upon, because I can't find a written transcript of the documentary, and I refuse to listen to the whole thing. If it wasn't, I would ask you to please consider making a comment about it in your next program, and explaining that it is not the ABC's position to support such hatred, nor to condone or incite hatred against minority groups in Australia. Many thanks for your attention, With kind regards, Melina Magdalena