Polling Booth - 7 September 2013

Polling Booth - 7 September
(c) Melina Magdalena (2013)

To the Hijab-wearing woman who was handing out Labor How-to-Vote cards at St Brigid’s polling booth in Kilburn today.

Dear Sister,

I want you to know that you hurt me today. It was not a big hurt, and it was not the first time that I have felt hurt, but it is not excusable. You need to know that although I forgive you for hurting me, the feeling lingers and will not go away.

While I fit into your framework, you were friendly and kind. You talked to me about our baby and our son. More than once, as our eyes met, you smiled at me, and I smiled back. I felt good about participating in my country’s democratic traditions with you. I applauded your active involvement in local politics. I admired your tactful way of approaching voters. I felt grateful for your confidence in steering frail, elderly voters towards the front of the queue, despite the resentful grumblings of the crowd, grumblings I am sure you were aware of.

You fit thus into my framework: I imagine you are an educated Muslim woman, perhaps a refugee, perhaps a migrant, though not recent. Having spoken with you, I know that Australian English is not your first language. I guess from your accent and the style of your clothing that Farsi or Dari may be your mother tongue. I see your familiarity with the voting process, and your determination to take part, by distributing how-to-vote cards for the political party of your choice. I imagine you have loved many babies and children in your time – perhaps your own, perhaps those of your extended family.

I can imagine excuses for your behaviour and the way that you hurt me, but I am not confident that one of my imaginary scenarios happens to be the correct one. All I know is what I experienced, and I call it bigotry.

What you don’t know about me doesn’t really matter. You don’t need to know how passionately I defend the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and people whose first language is not English. You don’t need to know my religious background. You don’t need to know my private business, or even that I am probably the neighbour most likely to give you the time of day when you pass by my house; most likely to offer you the produce from my own garden.

Perhaps you are the survivor of frequent attacks upon your identity as a Muslim woman in Australia? Perhaps it takes immense courage for you to step out in a public forum and present yourself as one Australian amongst many, when you know that you are constantly being judged for the way you choose to dress? Perhaps there is trouble in your community or your family; trouble that you may believe stems from the differences between your traditions and culture, and the multicultural, pluralist society of the country in which you now live? Perhaps you feel threatened by the invisible differences between us, or embarrassed that you somehow misread the codes and misinterpreted who I am?

Whatever the reason is, you judged me. You ceased to meet my gaze. You began to treat me as a non-person, someone unworthy of your attention. I know the moment at which your judgment fell upon me. It was when my partner replied to your question, of whether I was her sister. She answered you openly and truthfully. She chose not to lie, or obscure the truth of our relationship. She explained to you that our sons have two mothers.

I don’t know precisely what you felt. Were you embarrassed, disgusted, ashamed? Were you afraid of us? Did you think that speaking to us might somehow taint your purity and threaten your faith? Sister, I hope your faith and your identity are stronger than that. For all you know, some of the voters to whom you so courteously and sweetly handed your how-to-vote cards were racists, criminals, atheists, paedophiles, murderers and wife-beaters. I am none of those.

If I am the first lesbian you have ever met, I want you to know that you hurt me with your bigotry. It was narrow, mean and unnecessary. You met me with your sudden hostility when I had approached you in sisterhood and friendliness. I feel angry, and I feel hurt. Shame on you.   

In peace, and offered with blessings,

Melina Magdalena

(The woman in the Greens shirt who was handing out How-to-Vote cards with you at St Brigid’s polling booth in Kilburn today.)

 

 

Extrapolation

Extrapolation 

© Melina Magdalena (2012)

Dear C,

I am writing to you about the effects of your behaviour on my Beloved. I hope to appeal to your intelligence – even if in doing so, I shake your faith. Forgive me for saying so, but it would seem to me that your faith could use some shaking up – why else have you come to be part of the congregation that has welcomed you?

I have never heard her utter such a howl of anguish and defeat. “It’s not safe anymore. I’m not safe there. I can’t be who I am!” This was as she hung up on your timid homophobic tirade.

“I’m a sinner too,” you told her, implying that your sin is equal to hers, but meaning that you are unable to shift a fraction closer to accepting that she has as much a right as you do,  to be part of the church you both attend; that as a member of the same congregation, she deserves your respect and consideration; and that as a volunteer who has been working with the young people of the congregation for more than three years, you can be sure she’s got their best interests at heart.

She tells me that the congregation accepts everyone, pretty well unconditionally. As well as refugees and Australians of every colour and class, it’s a congregation that embraces murderers, paedophiles, rapists, wife-beaters, people who have never been paid for a day of work in their lives, druggies and parents whose children have been removed for their own safety.

Do you count yourself as one of those sinners? Are you hiding something of such grand, evil and criminal proportions? Doesn't it make your skin crawl, to think that you share a proverbial pew with such persons? Did you think that being a Christian is the same as being a nice person? Believe me, it doesn’t work that way. Here’s another eye-opener – believe it or not, some nice people are not Christians at all. I’m one of them.

Faced with your hatred of her, and her fear that the congregation is unwilling to face up to and deal with the issue, My Beloved feels that so-called acceptance equates to an uneasy tolerance, bordering on censorship. Your hatred is due to the fact that her partner (me) is another woman. And what of so-called Christian Love?

Fancy telling her that it was inappropriate to ask a young person from the Sunday School to read out that particular prayer at the Intergenerational Service? It was a prayer that said worshippers were welcome, whether gay or straight. It was a prayer that appeared in the materials provided for Sunday Schools. She didn't make it up! Never mind that in the places those young people came from, people are routinely killed for being homosexual. Is that what you want for My Beloved? Do you think she deserves to die, because she chooses to love another woman? That's not very nice. What’s wrong with you?    

My Beloved grew up in a conservatively Christian family that was probably theologically not too different from yours. She knows where you are coming from. She has been dealing with this crap for almost two decades. Can you even imagine what it feels like, to be betrayed by your own body, to be so frightened of something you discover about yourself, that you bury your feelings deep, and spend every waking moment preoccupied by the urgency of concealing a hateful, dirty, frightening secret?

Letting anyone into that space leaves you open to a rejection so profound, that there is almost nothing you can build around yourself for protection, or to bargain your way back into acceptance by the fold. It took 10 years before My Beloved’s mother was able to accept that her daughter is a lesbian, that it’s OK, and that she is still a child of God.

Your attitude makes my skin crawl. I realize that you believe me capable of forcing you to have sex with me. You think I’m a rapist. You think My Beloved is a rapist who wants all the young people in the Sunday School to be homosexual. How ridiculous!

Your belief that lesbians are sexually attracted to all women is mistaken. It’s not true! Do you also believe that as a heterosexual woman you could fall in love with any and every man? Would you consent to marry any man that was chosen for you by some authority figure; be it pastor, grandfather, guru? Is that fair?

The Bible promotes arranged marriage. Many non-Christians around the world today still believe that arranged marriages are the way to go. No more than killing homosexuals, is arranged marriage the way we do things in Australia, whatever our belief system.

When My Beloved and I got married, we didn’t have the approval of the Australian Government. We didn’t do so with the approval of any church or synagogue (I’m Jewish, by the way). Our marriage ceremony was profoundly meaningful and moving. We performed the ceremony publically, in front of a large gathering of friends and family. Since that time, we have made our home together; we have striven to uphold the promises we made to one another, and we have had a child together. We live quite ordinary lives, with a mortgage, a cat, a garden and we work for a living. We hope to get some chooks during the next school holidays. We keep bees.

We didn’t have to get married – we chose to marry each other. So what do you make of that? Are we perverts? Are we dangerous? Are we a threat to the structure of society?

Just what do you think of our child? Should he be ashamed of his family? Should he hide the fact that he has two loving parents? Should he come to church each Sunday and expect that his Amma is denigrated and made miserable because she loves me? Should he in turn, learn to hate his mothers? Should he be made to listen to homophobic comments, so-called jokes, and other forms of cruelty that attack his identity and make him feel invalidated? Or maybe he just shouldn’t expect to find a welcome at the church you go to? Maybe he can’t be a Christian, like you?

I am putting words to your hypocrisy. You are probably so flabbergasted by the thought of lesbians having children together that the effect of your attitude on our son has never crossed your mind. You are far from kind and so close to cruel; definitely not nice.

And don’t you think we thought long and hard about all of this before we embarked on the journey of conceiving and bearing this child? What kind of world do you think we want for him?   

You may style yourself a sinner, but My Beloved gains nothing from such confession. She is not in the same league with you. The internal and external battles she has fought and overcome in order to stand where she stands today, as a married, Christian lesbian mother, are victories that you do not understand. You don’t even want to go there. Isn’t that just a bit pathetic? Do you have a backbone? Do you have a brain?

If God wants anything for you, it is that you be free; that you treat all of God’s creation with respect and lovingkindness.

There are people for whom the idea of lovingly touching a human being of the same sex is horrible. These people are full of fear and hatred. Their feelings are perverted – we call these people homophobic. It is possible to move beyond homophobia to a place where you don’t need to be a lesbian in order to accept that some other people are lesbians; that some other people are gay; that some other people are bisexual; that some other people are transgender; that some people are asexual; that some people are intersex.

There is a place that you could move to, where you no longer feel so threatened by people who in one single aspect of their being; their sexuality, are not the same as you. But no one expects you to change your views without a lot of effort and willpower. And we all know how very frightened you must be feeling. It’s not nice to feel that way.

The Bible condones a whole lot of things and it condemns a whole lot of things. To accept The Bible in its entirety as the Literal Word of The One True God is to accept a document that encompasses humanity, with all of its foibles, mistakes and crimes, as well as its breath-taking capabilities and beauty. God does not require you to make sense of every little word – only an insane person could possibly make sense of every word of The Bible, because inherent in The Bible, are as many contradictions, changes of mind and mood, and expression of character, as are possible amidst human variety. 

You really need to get past the arrogant idea that you comprehend The Bible as the Literal Word Of The One True God, because you can’t. You just accept what other people have told you to accept. You are stubbornly blind to so many of its other aspects and perspectives.

Not so long ago, in Australia, homosexuality was a crime punishable by law. That is no longer the case. You can say to me that Australian Law has nothing to do with God. Let me ask you this though – what other behaviours that are condoned in The Bible, are now considered to be unacceptable or even criminal acts? It’s an easy question – trawl facebook for a few moments and you will find memes that supply you with multiple examples, such as polygamy, slavery, incest and rape. You tell me that because homosexuality is condemned in The Bible, it can never become acceptable for a Christian to be homosexual. Is it acceptable for a Christian to be a rapist? A slave-owner? What hurts more? And who made YOU the judge?  

As a Jew, I can confidently tell you that Jews don’t follow the Old Testament commandments anymore. We do not sacrifice animals and birds and fruits of our fields. There are many things about Jewish lives that fail to follow the Literal Word of The One True God. This is fact not only for such radical Jewish Lesbian Feminists as MYSELF, but also for Jews who consider their practices to be orthodox. In saying this, I am deliberately interfering with the possibility that you will think I have no credibility in picking holes in your faith and belief system. Your values and your lived theology suck. You need to do some work on them.

The fact that My Beloved defends your right to express your views and not be shut down for your homophobic views proves her commitment to justice, which is one of the pillars of her faith.

Oh – do I sound angry? Yes, it’s actually not Unchristian to get angry any more than it is typically ethnically Jewish of me to express myself in this histrionic, blunt way. It’s just me. And yes I am angry, Connie.  You are not being very nice, and whether you realise it or not, you are also threatening other people in the congregation that has welcomed you. I do not know you, but you have hurt My Beloved deeply, made her feel vulnerable and displaced in a way that she really doesn’t deserve. Did I mention that I love the woman?

Kind regards,
Melina Magdalena  

Multifaith, Shmultifaith

Multifaith, Shmultifaith
(c) Melina Magdalena (2012)

I write as an outsider, unaffiliated in any official, paid-up sense, though my informal affiliations and associations doubtlessly play their part in building my perspective and will add weight to what I have to say. However, I speak as an individual, not having sought representation or agreement from anyone else. I hope you will read my words with respect, and due consideration. My aim is neither to stir up trouble, nor add to troubles already ensuing. I support multifaith activity, and I support a venture that seeks to honour and assist asylum seekers.

I am writing about the “Multifaith service to Honour perished asylum seekers”, this Sunday July 1^st, 2012, at Pilgrim Church. I first learned of this event from an email on Wednesday afternoon thanks to an email sent to me by a fellow JAFL (Jewish Adelaide Feminist Lesbians), who had received it from Sharon and Bob Setton, who disseminate information through “the” Adelaide Jewish community (notwithstanding many of us who are not on their list).

Excited by the opportunity to join with others on such a grave and important occasion, and by the chance to do something that could make me feel I have some voice and power to help change the situation for survivors, by working and praying together with others, I immediately forwarded the information to the school where I have been teaching for several years, to be distributed via an “AllStaff” email. I knew that many of my colleagues would be interested in this event, as we run an Intensive English Language Centre (IELC; formerly known as New Arrivals Program). I also forwarded the email to my partner, who works in another IELC. I then copied the information and loaded it onto my Facebook page as my status update.

I noted that Rabbi Shoshana Kaminsky was listed as the media contact, so I included that information for anyone who has links to the media, or who needed more information. I noted that the event was not endorsed or organized by Multifaith SA, and although I wondered about that, I also noted that “the service has been developed by an informal multifaith group which has included representation from the Christian, Jewish, Baha’i and Muslim faiths”. That sounded kosher.

Only two of my Facebook friends ‘liked’ and ‘shared’ the information. My partner also responded by sending the information out via an “AllStaff” email at her school.

This morning I discovered with some chagrin, that a new streamlined flyer had been developed to promote the event, which limits the information to just the venue (Pilgrim Church) and bears the logo of the Uniting Church. By neglecting to mention of the Rabbi or the Beit Shalom Synagogue, this version significantly waters down the credibility of the event as a multifaith venture.  

Late last year I was approached by a Christian lesbian, who was interested in organising a multifaith lesbian group. I was happy to discuss it, because in principle I support such an idea. However, I also cringed, reacting from past experience where a majority, in trying to include a (or some) minorities, automatically privileges itself, thus causing the inevitable sidelining and eventual exclusion of those minorities. When that happens, those who represent the minorities often experience it as tokenism. It is a matter of concern, because the process, that seems to occur without anyone sanctioning or planning it, is so destructive to the cause.

The value of multifaith events is in breaking down prejudices and building commonalities and connections between people of different faith traditions. Usually, those who embrace these opportunities are already not the mainstream practitioners of their faiths. Usually, these people are engaged, do practice their faith and regard it as important in their lives. These are the courageous people whose minds are open to the idea that different does not mean evil, and that different can also mean the same. These people have the chance through their lives, to build more links, to break down more prejudices and to engage with others, in order to create a more peaceful world.

However, it is only through deliberate and fair representation of diversity that a multifaith event can be understood to be truly multifaith, and not simply a Christian church service that that pays lip service to other religions and denominations but fails to actually connect with and include people of other faiths.

It needs to be said that many people who are not Christian find the idea of attending a church for a religious service to be an enormous obstacle, which can only be overcome through explicit, repeated, exerted effort on the part of the Christians who attend that church, as well as from those allies of other faiths who have already broken down their fears around entering and praying in a church environment. What is normal for Christians is not normal for people of other faiths. No matter how friendly, non-threatening and welcoming Christians may believe their setting to be, it is still always intrinsically different from what outsiders may have experienced before, or what they have been led to expect.

There are many links, similarities, aha! moments and interconnections between faiths and the way that they are practised, but unless people of other faiths are actively seeking to make those connections, whilst visiting churches, they are actually busily trying to bolster their own sense of normality and rightness, and to reconstruct for themselves, in a foreign church environment, a space where they feel safe and comfortable to worship. You cannot assume that people of other faiths will know how not to offend, what is expected, where to sit, how to sit, what hand gestures and utterances are appropriate, whether to sing, and so on, in a foreign church environment. It might not matter to you, as a friendly Christian, but an outsider might well respond to such a notion that it doesn’t matter, with something like “What? You don’t respect your own faith enough to demand that certain proprieties be followed? How can it not matter?”

I know from personal experience how difficult it can be to find a person or people or single family or representative of one denomination who is willing to engage with representatives of other denominations, let alone other faiths, and I respect the desire to not use individuals as tokens, in the absence of sustained interest in an event or group. The multifaith path is not an easy one. 

I will mention here that like multifaith, multiculturalism has traditionally ignored Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander input, thereby neatly excising and excluding Indigenous Australians from being included as part of the amorphous whole, that is diverse Australia. Yet the idea of seeking input of a spiritual nature from “Indigenous Australia” causes people to cringe because, as with any group, the multifarious versions of spirituality sometimes include, sometimes exclude, are regarded as so private as to be secret, and we do not wish to offend. It is no different for people of any minority faith and tradition.

Part of the problem that I have picked up on, through my experiences as part of multifaith and multicultural events, is the difficulty caused by denominations. It’s all well and good to want to have a group that, for the sake of an example, includes one Christian, one Jew, one Muslim, one Hindu, one Baha’i, one Pagan, one Buddhist, and so on, but in a mainstream Australian context, which Christian do you choose?

We can safely assume that the Christians who want nothing to do with such a venture can be ignored for these purposes, but how do you avoid privileging one Christian over another? How do you determine which is the most deserving Christian, the most well-meaning Christian, the most powerful Christian, the Christian least likely to offend or seek to convert? And what do you do with the other irate, outspoken, angry Christians who were excluded, who don’t believe they are being accurately represented, and who want a say as well? What of the other friendly Christians who desperately want to participate? 

A group that includes 8 Christians of 8 different denominations is already multifaith. Do you need to have a group that includes 5 Jews of 5 different denominations, 4 Muslims of 4 different denominations, and so on, as well? I am betraying my ignorance here, but I think you will understand the point that I am trying to make. And being the lone Jew in a group that consists of a lone Muslim, a lone Hindu, a lone Buddhist, a lone Baha'i and 8 different Christians feels like being invisible, particularly when those friendly Christians persist in telling that lone Jew that they have always been fascinated by the Old Testament, want the low-down on why Jews haven’t accepted Jesus, and fish for an invitation to the next Seder or Shabbat.

Back to the point: promotional material for a multifaith event that bears a single logo to represent a single faith is not promoting that event in a multifaith way. It is exclusionary and downright offensive. It almost makes me want to not go to the church at all. I just hope that other people either haven’t seen that flyer, or are big enough to set the offense aside, in the name of the cause.

I note with some dismay that I have not issued any words that relate directly to the fact that asylum seeking men, women and children have been shipwrecked and drowned this week, in the name of a democratic Australia. Some will accuse me of wallowing in first world problems, encourage me to grow up and see the wood for the trees. I’ve lived with that kind of accusation since I was 16 years old, joined my first peace group “S.A.N.I.T.Y.”, and was upset when other members began to bag Israel (and Jews, and by extension – Me!) for the mistreatment of Palestinians. I am 42 now, with a wealth of experiences – mostly disillusioning, some bewildering and a few enlightening – and I still say this is important enough for you to pay attention to.   

Returning to my woggy roots

Returning to My Woggy Roots
(c) Melina Magdalena (2011)

In the meantime, we had to replace our trusty gardening fork and spade. Both of the old ones were about 20 years old and their handles broke off in the same week. It was such a pleasure to be given a $100 budget and go replace them. I took the baby and he rode on the trolley through the hardware store.

It's more than a year since I wrote the post Gardening Outside the Fence. The guerilla garden in the vacant lot over the road didn't work out. The blocks are still up for sale, and people walk across it regularly. Someone dumped a truckload of what I hope was clean fill on the block a couple of months ago. The kids have had a great time compacting it, and climbing up and over.

Outside our fence this year is an enormous crop of broadbeans. There's some dill and one silverbeet plant struggling in amongst them. I've widened the strip to include the area outside our front yard too, and the soil there hasn't had a chance to be built up and enriched. So many poppies volunteered themselves in the front flower patch, that I spread some in amongst the broadbeans, too. We've enjoyed eating them, but I'm not sure many of our neighbours have! I've put in some more sunflower seeds in between the ageing bean plants, hoping that the new plants will be sheltered as they sprout. 

Around the corner from us is a mulberry tree growing happily on someone's nature strip. It is a marvel - still young, but green and prolific with fruit. I'm not sure the people whose house it is growing outside of, want to share! We planted a mulberry in our backyard early last winter. It lost all its leaves and looked like a stick in the ground. Then suddenly it sprouted large leaves again, AND fruit.

It's amazing to look back at what was here when we moved in, and the changes that we've made in the last three years. These are changes inside the fence - not just outside. The backyard vege patch has been remade completely, and the seed I sowed there a few weeks ago has sprouted enough for me to be able to differentiate the plants (mostly). In fact this morning the baby and I thinned the radishes. My Grandma had a theory about nutrition that said - if a child puts strange things in its mouth, it is probably lacking nutrients, and so you should feed it radishes. Well, I tested that theory this morning. It's too early to tell!

I've had my eye on a patch of the nature strip outside our house for a while now. The nature strip, also known as the 'verge', is the land between the footpath and the kerb outside a residence. We had requested some time ago, that the local Council cease spraying our nature strip, after the herbicide blew into our yard and killed some of our flowers. So now it is our responsibility to keep our nature strip under control - sans herbicide.

The weeds are quite diverse, but there is a great deal of grass in the nature strip, as well as clover and other plants with prickles. We had a terrible time last spring with Caltrop, and I'm concerned that my activities outside our fence do not lead to another outbreak of this horrible plant.

I may be addicted to digging. For advocates of the no-dig garden, this may seem a little odd, but I find it immensely satisfying to work at soil and transform it into something that I can use. The soil around here is great!

A few weeks ago I used our new spade to break up the patch of nature strip into small sections. I didn't get back to it until today, but that is a good thing, as we got so much rain last week that the soil has softened. I managed to dig up about one-fifth of the area this morning, and during that time I had some interactions with 3 neighbours. I didn't reveal my plan, however. When asked - why are you doing that? I replied - so that I can grow something in here other than weeds!

Actually, I plan to put a fig tree in the centre of this patch. I hope the council will allow it to grow. If I prune it cleverly, I think it won't be obstructive to traffic, and we just don't have room for a fig in our yard! The fig tree will of course, be very small for quite a while. So I've planted out some seed trays of zinnias and portulaca. And I've reserved some sunflower seeds as well.

It's the first day of my two week school holiday break, and I'm loving it.  




 

Mitzrayim in Kilburn

Mitzrayim in Kilburn

(c) Melina Magdalena 2011

Ugliness is what I found outside our door this afternoon.

There is a large vacant block opposite our house. When we moved in, there were 4 houses on this block. The houses are long gone, it has now been subdivided again, and the blocks are up for sale. In the meantime, water mains have been dug into each block, which meant digging up the street and the footpath. The parts of the cement footpath were cemented over, and the soft, wet cement had been carved into. Not just the usual stuff - names or so-and-so loves so-and-s0, or even so-and-so is a homo, which would have been bad enough.

Dayenu

No, I took the baby across to see. He was excited by the red and white striped safety banners that had been erected around each soft part of the footpath. The wind was flapping them and I was hard-pressed keeping him off the street, chasing after the ends. But something caught my eye. I picked him up and went to see.

My heart sank deeper than the pollution that lines the shallows of our shared waters of life.

So we went back home and got the chalks and I went to work. People were driving home and gawking at my big behind as I was on my hands and knees, passionately chalking out alternative messages. Well, I felt self conscious.

But undeterred.

My beloved took matters into her hands, picked up the phone and called the police. Such viliifying racist vandalism is surely against the law. The police referred her to the Local Council. It was after hours.

She too, was undeterred.

"Well then, I understand what you're saying," I heard her say calmly, "so in that case, may I please speak with your supervisor? You know what Kilburn is like. There are African kids walking up and down that street all the time. There are so many Afghani families living around here. This is not acceptable. It needs to be erased tonight. It can't wait until next week."

An hour later we were eating dinner. We heard a vehicle pull up. Clutching my bowl of risotto, I ran out the front gate and found a Council man with a tool, scratching out the hateful messages. My beloved brought up the rear, carrying the baby.

"Thank you so much for coming out to do this tonight," we told him. "Have a great weekend."

"It's just kids," he said.

"It's not just kids," I retorted. "It's nastiness."

"Yes," he agreed. "It is nasty."

And it is. Kids learn their attitudes from their elders. And it's no excuse. This is our neighbourhood, too. We are the strangers in the midst of a cultural sand storm. We are the weirdos in the village. It's our child who will grow up to inherit the world that we have helped to produce and sustain. It wasn't just for the sake of the African families, the Iraqi families, the Burmese and Afghani and Indian families that I did what I did. It was also for my sake and for my own family.

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

to the reclaim the night collective

to the reclaim the night collective
February 12 2011

Comment received anonymously on my previous post:

The Reclaim the Night poster is not yours - it is the property of the collective. You agreed to design it but that doesn't give you ownership or indeed the right to sell it on. For someone who claims that women's rights is one of her interests, this completely undermines the feminist collective. I would appreciate it if you stop selling the posters for your own personal profit and direct the funds to the reclaim the night collective

What can I say?
1. I designed the poster out of my own experience. I painted the original banner with my own materials. This was prior to my offering it to the collective of that year for use that year to promote the event that year.

2. I paid to have the banner professionally photographed.

3. I paid to have the posters printed.

Who are you? And who is the reclaim the night collective? And how long have you been participating on this collective? And is this collective active?

From my recollection the Adelaide Reclaim the Night fell by the wayside during the first half of this decade in favour of commemorating the 16 Days Against Violence Against Women. There was an attempt by bureaucratic paid public servants to maintain the apparatus but due in part to the reluctance to undertake work that was unpaid, and in part to the difficulty in organising alongside unpaid grassroots women it gradually withered away. If there has been a resurgence of interest in Reclaim the Night I welcome it.

It's not the first time I have been accused of undermining "the feminist collective" and I admit I have had no training in feminism. I don't know what this means. I don't know what I have done to undermine it. It feels confusing. It triggers my inner conviction that I am a fraud, that I am dishonest and stupid. Perhaps I am. Perhaps you would care to explain to me what you mean and how I could change my ways?

A little herstory -
I joined a reclaim the night organising collective in Adelaide and designed a poster for that year's event. Perhaps you recall it? It was landscape orientation, painted joyously in blues, purples and reds, showing shoes around the border, and advertising that year's Reclaim the Night march. I enjoyed being part of the organising collective and participating in a event that had become integral to my identity and that I had been faithfully attending for several years.

The following year I again participated in the organising collective. At that time most collective members were students at Flinders and Adelaide Universities. I was very excited by a banner that I had painted of a poster design I had entered in a competition many years earlier for Reclaim the Night. That original design was pencil and it was the wrong dimensions and it was not chosen as the winner of the competition that year.

I offered my newly painted revamped design for use to promote that year's Adelaide event. I did not offer it in perpetuity and it never crossed my mind that someone might have considered that I had.

[I do not claim that poster is representative of Reclaim the Night or that no one else could design a poster to better represent Reclaim the Night. I welcome the expression by others to represent the event and all that it stands for. I may be misguided in my feminism but I am not that arrogant.]

I was so scarred by my experience that year in that organising collective that I stopped attending Reclaim the Night events at all. I was lied to, unsupported, attacked and generally so abused by some of the women on the collective that I decided it wasn't really safe to participate anymore.

I had had the idea that the Reclaim the Night event might be revitalised if it had some publicity prior to the march, to remind Adelaide's women about the march. The collective agreed to support a poster launch, and then failed to support it in the event, to the extent that at the poster launch, there were no posters. It was a farce. Leaving aside my personal humiliation, the lack of support by the collective members for something we had collectively agreed to do, undermined our collective efforts to gain momentum and participation in the march that followed.

At that point I embarked upon finding another way to participate in changing the world and acting against violence against women; particularly sexual violence. The result of this was The Reclaiming Anthology, published a few years later. The book is organised around the poster design, with a section for each window of reclaiming as represented on the poster.

I later paid out with my own money to have my poster reprinted for the purposes of promoting the book and the poster together. No one has requested to use the poster to promote subsequent Reclaim the Night events. It has fallen into herstory. It has fallen into disuse. Why not onsell the pieces of pretty paper to other women around the country who might gain something from it?

The design is my personal creative property. It was not commissioned by the collective of that year or, indeed any collective. It is wrong for the collective to lay claim to it now, and it rankles that someone would do so anonymously with such an intrinsic lack of integrity.

By all means make contact with me if you value my poster and wish to use it. By all means acknowledge the work that I did. By all means treat me as a human being and respect the fact that I am at least attempting to live and deal openly in this world.

a protest vote?

a protest vote?
© Melina Magdalena (2010)

It was because of Facebook that I became aware of Wendy Francis and her obnoctious, hurtful, defamatory and vilifying comments. If I do a quick scan of my Facebook Friends, a good percentage of them are lesbian friends whom I’ve never met in person. I don’t have many face-to-face connections in Adelaide where I live, and my online lesbian parenting community has become a big part of my life.

However, during this election campaign I have been aware of Bob Day, and his obnoctious, excluding electioneering propaganda, because it came right into my letterbox, despite the “No Junk mail, thanks”, painted thoughtfully on said letterbox a week after we moved into Kilburn. The Family First Party proudly captions its candidates’ photographs with statistics on how many years each one has been happily married and, if possible, how many lovely children they have.

First of all, I watched the link posted to Facebook, of Wendy Francis and Fiona Patten, of the Australian Sex Party, when they appeared on
Sunrise, August 2 2010. I was first of all appalled by Wendy Francis’ complete lack of respect for the courtesies and formalities of a debate, and her gleeful verbal attack of everything that Fiona Patten said. I felt Wendy Francis came across as a defensive bully, who couldn’t allow Fiona Patten a chance to speak.

A few days later a different Facebook Friend posted a link to the comments that Wendy Francis published on Twitter, against gays having children. I was incensed and offended. For the next week, my updates on Facebook were mostly about this issue. The whole thing about Gay Marriage does not really move me one way or the other, but to accuse me of being a Child Abuser because I am a parent in a same-sex relationship really hurts and frightens me – especially because I’m quite open about my identity.

What is interesting is to see the reaction of my Facebook Friends to my furious status updates. Usually, there is a range of responses to my pithy and often ridiculously banal status updates. However, an uneasy silence seemed to reign this week, from many corners. So – is this the silent majority to which conspiracists enjoy attributing election results? Everyone was busy? Refugee issues are more important? We’re fed up with “liking” bits and pieces of election coverage? I don’t know.

Piqued, I chose to post a link to Clemetine Ford’s article published on ABC’s The Drum Unleashed, Family First Worth Fighting For. I picked out Ford’s argument about the demographic which happens to really be responsible for perpetrating most abuse against children in Australia, and commented: yup the stats on child abuse - whether physical or emotional or otherwise - speak loud and clear against straight white men parenting children. Of course, neither Ford nor I meant that therefore no one in that particular demographic ought to be allowed to parent children. Naturally, neither Ford nor I was implying that the majority of straight white men in Australia are Child Abusers.

In hindsight I don’t think I need to apologise to my Straight White Male friends or their spouses. Certainly, Wendy Francis can only tick two of those three boxes, so it would possibly have made more sense for me to be attacking Straight White Married Female Religious Fanatics. But even in our family-unfriendly society no one is claiming that Straight White Women should not be having babies!

On a side note, I really do need to take stock and mind my attitude, because as the mother of two sons I don’t want them believing they need to fit the stereotype’s mould and thereby earn my wrath and scorn. I don’t want them to be exposed to the kind of anti-male sentiments that women – both straight and bent – tend to indulge in, which of course, is the corollary of the kind of misogynist male talk that pervades our society (posted, incidentally, by another Facebook Friend). And no, while I am big enough to admit to this tendency of mine, I am not accusing all of my male friends of indulging in this. And seriously, I don’t want my boys thinking there is no way we can relate with mutual respect and affection.

What interests me is that a few of my Facebook Friends took great umbrage at my comment. I realise it is politically correct to swaddle Straight White Men in the heady embrace of adoration and abject gratitude for taking seriously, their roles as fathers and partners, and while my gag reflex is thereby triggered, it is mostly sour grapes for the lack of similar encouragement that women tend to receive for stepping outside their perceived roles and treading unfamiliar paths, with similarly varying degrees of success. Will these fathers and partners stop performing their roles if they aren’t given sufficient reason to keep them up? I don’t think so!

But this was not supposed to be another heterophobic verbal onslaught. I am fascinated by how people rose up in indignant affront when I was seen to be attacking the group who least require our support. These are the people who through no fault or effort of their own, have power and status granted to them simply because of their skin colour, gender, and sexual orientation.

Wendy Francis made very personal attacks on me, my partner and our child. She accused my partner and me of being Child Abusers. And this was supposed to be an intelligent and considered piece about why some of my Facebook Friends thought it was more important to stand up for the rights of straight white men, than to show empathy to families who have been attacked and publicly vilified across Australian media.

Gardening Outside the Fence

Gardening Outside the Fence
© Melina Magdalena (2010)

I call it gardening outside the fence. It’s so easy and productive, that I think this style of growing vegetables and herbs could become as popular as Lolo Houbein’s “One Magic Square”. At present there are radishes, Japanese turnips, silverbeet, red chard, beetroots, snow peas and coriander in this garden strip. There are also two volunteer sunflowers, reminders of our first crop outside the fence, last spring and summer.

This morning I harvested some radishes and beets, sowed some carrot seed and planted out a few tiny parsley seedlings. While working I chatted with a few passers-by. One man just smiled and grunted a greeting. He’s the one who warned me not to bother planting the sunflowers, as the “kids around here” would just destroy them. A couple of months later though, he was also very happy to take home a seed-filled sunflower head for his cocky. Another man stopped and admired the crops. This was the first time I had spoken to him. He told me he has cabbages and carrots in his garden at home. Some kids ran past, busy with a project they have going on the back fence of the vacant lot over the road. They waved.

Last week I was hanging out the washing, and heard my bamboo poles being removed yet again, from the snow peas that have been straggling across the footpath instead of climbing them as they should. “Who is that outside my fence, stealing my sticks?” I roared in an imitation of the troll in Billy Goat’s Gruff. The chattering paused, and moved a little bit up the path. When I finished what I was doing, I took the baby out to see whether there were any sticks left. I chatted with the two little boys, aged 9 and 10, who live around the corner and were engaged in a vigorous sword fight with my bamboo poles. I explained to them what they were for, and told them to come back every week to check for peas. I said they can eat the peas if they find them on the plants.

Most of the houses in our suburb of Kilburn were built by public housing. They all seem to have their fence lines 30-50 cm away from the footpath. We are lucky enough to live on a corner, with the long side fence facing north. I noticed last winter that this strip of dirt was full of healthy weeds and I thought – why not dig up the weeds and replace them with something I want to grow? I set to work with my fork and spade and had soon filled the compost bin with weeds, and had a garden bed full of rich soil, which I have since manured and mulched at least twice, to keep it in good shape.

The sunflowers as I mentioned, were our first crop. They grew with strength and beauty in that sun, against the colourbond fence, and attracted a lot of positive attention. We are new to this area, and I’m keen to try and strike connections with other members of our community, which is diverse and changing. As well as the very poor, multi-generational unemployed white public housing residents, there are Aboriginal families and also families of new immigrants and refugees. I sometimes wonder whether they would take up gardening in their new homes, if they could access the tools and the seeds.

We already have a vege garden in the backyard. We have a couple of fruit trees as well. We are slowly working to establish a native garden in the front yard. I love gardening, and try to do a couple of hours in the garden every week, rain or as it mostly is in Adelaide, shine. So why garden outside the fence?

I grew up around Maylands and Payneham. Most of our neighbours were post-war southern European immigrants. Everyone had olive trees, fig trees, grape vines and vegetable gardens. This was part of my culture, way back before the subdivisions started. Every year, my brothers and sister and I were sent out to gather flowers and leaves to decorate our Easter nests. We built the nests out of grass clippings – my Dad always mowed the lawn on Easter Saturday. It was our time-honoured rule that anything hanging over or outside of the fence was fair game, and we could pick it with impunity. We could not, however, pick anything that was inside someone’s fence.

It occurred to me that I can adopt a different philosophy with the produce that I grow. I can share it, instead of keeping it just for us and ours. I’ve had my eye on a couple of traffic islands around the corner, wondering whether we could establish a community orchard on them, harvesting rainwater from the stormwater drains next-door to keep the fruit trees healthy.

Food growing on plants is not something that kids around here see every day. I’d like to show the kids around here how easy it is to grow good food. I rely on my fork for nearly all of the digging work that I do, and I would happily lend that fork to someone else, if she wanted to start a garden outside her fence. Or, I could help that person purchase a fork and spread the work around.


And so I’ve made a start. Last week a pair of Housing Trust maisonettes just like ours was knocked down opposite us. Apparently it could take a couple of years before building work commences on them. In the meantime, I think I’ll plant sunflowers over there, too. One of our neighbours pointed out that because this vacant lot is on a corner, people are sure to use it as a shortcut. That was useful information. I’ve decided to plant a double row of sunflowers marching diagonally from open corner to open corner. I imagine us Kilburnites might enjoy walking through an avenue of sunflowers when spring comes…

And Ain't I A Human?

Ain’t I A Human?*
© Melina Magdalena (2010)
*paraphrased from Sojourner Truth’s 1851 speech “Ain’t I A Woman?

While we prepared for our union, deliberately not called a wedding, we laughed a little bitterly about the role of institutionalized worship in our relationship. A Reform Jewish Rabbi would have been happy to formalize my partnership with another woman; if only she had also been a Jew; a Christian cleric might have been persuaded to officiate at a mixed-faith ceremony; if only it had not been a same-sex union. And on and on and on the merry-go-round turns, scarcely deviating in its course of division, subjugation and demoralisation.

As for the state of our union? A year and a bit down the track, all of our friends and family members refer to our carefully and cumbersomely titled “Promise Making Ceremony and Celebration” as our wedding. We bow to the inevitable, and do the same. There is no essential difference between our marriage and how any couple learns to make a life together. Life is good. We are expecting our first child in a couple of months, and so our world expands, unfolds and blossoms.

By the way we did mention God – and even Jesus – in our ceremony. The multitude sanctioning our union by their presence included a Catholic nun and representatives of Protestant Christian ministry in their double digits, but sadly no representatives of Jewish ministry, mostly because I have chosen in my last ten years or so, not to engage with my Jewish world on an institutional level. No lightning struck.

The reflections by Gordon Preece, commissioning editor of Zadok Perspectives , on an article written by my beloved’s mother, and printed in No. 106 of this publication, (Autumn 2010) deny our humanity in a vicious and sustained attack upon us as lesbians. I found it shocking, but my beloved assures me that she could have a “conversation” of this nature every day of every week of her life, with someone in “the church”, if she chose to embark on such a self-abnegating venture, which she doesn’t.

The banality of Preece’s so-called scholarship is exposed by the various and oft-cited authoritative texts and ideas to which he refers in his editorial, compared with the single source chosen by him to represent queer thinking – the lyrics to the satirical and deliberately outrageous song by Lily Allen and Gregory Kurstin. In a paragraph where Preece denies church leadership roles for “practising gays”, he demands that “Both sides should move from hostility to hospitality”. Preece is sadly mistaken to assume that his carefully scripted attack on queer humanity is any less damaging than Allen and Kurstin’s song lyrics, just because of the format he has chosen. His attack cuts far more deeply, because it is couched in hypocritically nice language of “clarity and charity”, which very clearly expresses his hatred for me as a lesbian.

=Fuck You Very Much is a refreshingly honest response to those who like to practice their bigoted faith with low acts of hypocrisy and violence against people like me. I’m not just referring to Gay Bashing, as practiced against men in Australia; Corrective Rape, practiced against lesbians in South Africa, and Other Forms of Murder, practiced against homosexuals, transsexuals and queer people the world over, from Uganda to the = United States of America .

Homophobia is mainstream hatred which queer people face every day of our lives, from the ordinary bigoted people who inhabit the worlds in which we as queer people also dwell. The idea that homosexual people are not human enough to lead other human beings in a church context is as homophobic and potentially murderous as physical violence. With his denial of church leadership roles for “practising gays”, Preece advocates spiritual murder.

The issue is always the same. Whether it is the colour of one’s skin; one’s status as a slave or free born; the religious heritage of one’s grandparents and other forebears; the language one learned as a child; the borders of the nation where one was born; physical deformity, infirmity or simply difference, human beings are expert formulators of reasons as to why some people are awarded the title of being human, whilst others are resolutely denied that privilege. Such narrow-mindedness is almost amusing, in an issue of this publication which is sub-titled “Difference & Difficulty”. I cannot laugh at it however. It makes me angry. I must express that anger, lest I internalise it and fall into a depression. Unlike my beloved, I do not have decades of resistance behind me, to bolster my reactions.

Preece has a plethora of groups to choose from in this issue of Zadok. Should he marginalise and condemn people with mental illness? No, that is no longer politically correct, because sufferers who are appropriately medicated can live fulfilling (heterosexual) lives. People with schizophrenia may be dangerous and street-people are tragic, but Preece correctly defines mentally ill people as victims who are deserving of Christian charity. Perhaps then, the spotlight should be turned on the women and men of the church who remain single? Does their failure to marry not mask the fact that they are running around and engaging in illicit sexual relationships outside the institution of marriage? We cannot, surely, in good conscience, accuse virgin missionaries of such shenanigans. Let us let the single people be. Ok, so if not the mentally ill, nor the single people, what about people whose physical bodies fail to match up with what we refer to as normal? These are people whose bodies work in different ways from ours; those who compensate for a lack of hearing, by developing a rich and creative culture from which normal people are barred from participating, simply because we do hear. They are shutting us out. Should we not shun them, and stop them from cultural expression? Surely not! Jesus is cited as specifically including people with disabilities in his house as “an indispensable part of God’s family”. We must instead demand that these groups return the favour.

It is notable that Preece avoids the debate over whether homosexuality is a choice, or biological. The choice that he mentions involves homosexual practice versus (presumably) celibacy. I fail to understand how my homosexual practice hurts anyone at all. The artificiality of separating sexuality from sex is highlighted when religion tries to defend its homophobic stance. The only people who are supposed to be having sex are those who are having sex with their heterosexual marriage partner. So he can have sex with his wife. Fine. But two women or two men who are in a committed marriage-like relationship are not supposed to express themselves sexually, because…?

For religious adherents, whether they be Christian or Jewish, (since those are the two religious systems that come directly into play in my life), around the heart of the fear of same-sex attraction lies a framework of control devices – belief systems, dogma and rules – that are designed to ensure compliance and conformity. This structure need not be thorn-covered, to divide the acceptable, from the unacceptable. Anyone who is born unable to conform and comply because of the nature of their being is constricted and tortured if he or she is brought up within that structure. My partner describes how wonderfully safe it felt during her childhood, to know her boundaries and where she fit in. She also tells how impossible it was to fit in, when she discovered that she was the wrong sexuality. This was not something she could alter, but in order for her to survive, her worldview had to shift radically in order to accommodate her difference.

Preece expresses concern that in our postmodern world we are kneeling down to difference. He suggests that the concept of difference has taken centre stage on the altar of our western culture and threatens to become the idol of our religious focus, as well. It is a strange fear. Fashioned by God as we were – perhaps even created in the image of God – diversity exists at the deepest level of creation. What use is there in denying the differences that exist between us? With such a fear focus, Preece forgets that there is much more that unites us, than what divides us from one another.

The fear of what is similar lies at the heart of homophobia. Heterosexual people fear homosexuality not because it hurts them or even affects them directly in any way at all, but because they have been taught that it is something to be feared and avoided. To be called homosexual is to be called sub-human and abnormal – Preece has clearly never conquered an upbringing where he was told that homosexuals are mutant deviant dangerous monsters. I can presume he would pass this message onto his own offspring as well, which is monstrous.

The issue is always the same, and it is sad that a publication which purports to “promote informed theological reflection and engagement by people from all walks of life, in relation to Australian public, working, and personal life” continues to support homophobia and to deny the status of homosexual people as human beings. Naturally, issues around bisexuality, transgender and intersex people are ignored in his editorial. It is as though Preece, as representative of Christian thought on the matter, remains firmly blinkered to the realities of human diversity. As my beloved’s mother points out – Jesus was not so blinkered.

What is it, to be human? Like my beloved, I also work with new-comers to Australia. It is work that never fails to move me, in many directions. One of my students posed this question last week, in an English class. We were on the topic of Open Questions; based around the wh- words: who, what, where, why, which, when and how. He wrote on his form “Why are you a human?” and proceeded to parade that question past his bemused classmates, who were unprepared for such a deeply philosophical task. (Their questions were at a different level: “When did you come to Australia?” “Where do you live?” “Which bus do you catch?”) No one could offer a satisfactory response to my deep-thinker and when I turned the question upon him, he could only laugh, and say “I asked you first!”

The concept of a tribe of homosexuals is no less frightening than any tribe of outsiders. For those within the tribe there is at least a feeling of safety in numbers. The reality is that in most Christian congregations there is likely to be a smaller ratio of queer Christians than the 8-10% cited by my mother-ex-law in her article. The reasons for this are clear. Queer people are hated and feared by most Christians and would see little benefit in participating in church unless they had a personal faith that sustained them to find worth in their existence and their participation that was able to raise them above that hatred. A relationship with God (Jesus) might do the trick. I hesitate to posit that this relationship with God could be labelled “Christian” because of the obvious contradictions this poses in a world of mainstream homophobes who also use that label.

As a Jew, I was taught always to heed the fact that as an eternally homeless stranger myself, I can expect no less a welcome than that, which I am willing to offer to other strangers. The apartheid to which my mother-ex-law refers in her article, which “We have practised with our homophobic shudders and avoidance of encounter”, is something which my beloved has experienced all her life, as a member of Christian congregations, and it is wrong. It also exists in Jewish congregations.

As teachers, my partner and I are lucky enough, partly through working directly with marginalised new-comers to Australia, to reach a level of self-understanding that enables us to love our oppressors. We acknowledge that the hatred continually thrust in our direction, does not need to destroy our sense of well-being and purpose. In order to triumph, to flourish and to express our love for the world, we do not need to descend to the level of expressing hatred towards those who hate us.

The merry-go-round grapples with shallow concepts such as acceptance and tolerance at the same time as using a cattle prod to push us further away from the spotlight, and slam the doors of churches (and synagogues) behind us. Walls of words are built to keep us apart from the deserving minions, so that we might not taint the purity of so-called Christ-centred practice.

There is little depth to Preece’s preaching against homosexual humanity. He fails even to take a baby step in the direction of informed research collected about homosexuals. If he had bothered to do so, he would have discovered that many queer people also develop mental illness as a result of their mistreatment by mainstream society and marginalisation by Christians. Many homosexual adults remain single because they have been taught that same-sex relationships are not sanctioned by God and are therefore evil. Though they are attracted to people of the same sex, they choose celibacy in order to not be ostracised from their communities. Thirdly, some people with disabilities are also homosexual. How will “the church” deal with those?

Preece does not mention the unforgivable fact that a same-sex-attracted young person who has grown up in a church community is far more likely to kill himself or herself at discovering that he or she is not heterosexual, than a queer person who grew up outside Christian practice. Perhaps he recommends suicide as the better answer, for queer Christians?

Or Forever Hold Your Peace

Or Forever Hold Your Peace
(c) Melina Magdalena 2009

I’m writing today from within the eye of the needle.

What is a needle? A needle is a tool. I use needles for sewing, for knitting, for mending, for weaving. I have used a needle to apply paint to a tiny surface. I have used a needle to prise a splinter out of my daughter’s foot, to scrape grime from beneath my fingernails. When I was ten or eleven a doctor used a needle to stich my lip in three places where I had bitten through it during a somersault on Kathryn Turner’s trampoline. After giving birth to my son, two surgeons stitched me up down below because I had torn myself badly in my haste and inexperience.

When I contemplate needles, the point of the needle comes immediately to mind. However, the last few weeks has also brought the eye of the needle to my attention, when I was able to assist three dear friends with threading their needles for sewing projects, including the chuppah we created for our Promise Making Ceremony and Celebration.

That’s another nice metaphor; gentler than pushing someone’s barrow for them. Used without literality, I am sure I have helped many other people to thread their needles so that they could get on with whatever projects their life journeys had laid out before them. I know many people help me to thread my needles, too. The magic of this metaphor lies in the possibilities not only of what might be done with that thread once it’s in the needle, but what kind of thread it is in the first place. I could for example, use a golden thread to sew a silver lining to the clouds that beckon on the horizon, for example.

I’m wondering what a needle has to do with gaining access to heaven.

To a micro-being, the eye of a needle must seem vast. Poking the point of a needle around in a Petri dish teeming with micro-organisms must be the equivalent of dropping bombs on fragile human communities. It wreaks death and destruction. This hardly evokes an image of heaven to my mind.

To a human being, whether she is rich or poor or somewhere in between, the eye of a needle is tiny.

In any case, we none of us gain access to heaven through the eye of a needle (Mark 10:22-25). A needle binds two pieces of fabric together, allows us to make things of function and beauty. It’s not a means for gaining access to heaven, and I will always prefer the concept of using the tools we humans have at our disposal, to create heaven on earth. It’s that old Tikkun Olam again.

I’m wondering about the meaning of life.

It’s a frequent preoccupation of mine, but I have reached my own conclusions and beliefs. They are not incompatible with those of some mainstream religious – at least where they are concerned with the implications for how I choose to live my everyday life.
I believe that life goes on before, during and after. I believe there is much more to Life than what we conventionally acknowledge – perhaps there are many more kinds of life which are distant from the narrow focus that human beings on this planet choose to include within the concept.

As to the belief that my actions today will determine my future – I have seen this enacted time after time within my present, so I do not discount the idea. However, I don’t have a strong or rigid idea of where “I” will “go” after “death”. I do not believe that my life journey is leading me either to the door of heaven or to the gates of hell.

Many people do believe this of course. They purport to know with maximum efficiency and minimum effort, just what rituals and choices they must make in order to determine their eventual destination. And this leads me to a whole set of other questions.

For people with such beliefs, just how does a person gain entrance to heaven? Apart from the gauzy gaudy idea of a reward for hard work and difficult choices, what purpose does heaven serve, in the life of a person here on earth?

Does one gain entrance to that heaven by hurting … judging … rejecting … through bigotry … building walls to separate … burning bridges to enlarge an already existing divide … directly condemning … explicitly refusing to affirm other people’s endeavours?

Is the quality of being saved more about belonging to a special chosen group of people, or is it more about the moment of salvation, which propels one’s feet upon a journey to seek commonality and to foster inclusion amongst those whose eyes remain closed to the possibility that they themselves are valued and loved, as members of the human family?

What people can be so arrogant as to assume that their feet alone keep to that true path, whilst simultaneously claiming that it is their mission to serve? How can they live lives of questioning, judgment and rejection; blinded to the fact that in doing so, they project their arrogant, parsimonious and uncaring attitudes onto everyone who is different, and on those who had believed that they were loved?

What kind of life is it, to be ever blinkered by the shadow of heaven hovering above, beckoning one away from temptation, removing from one’s gaze, every possibility that might lead one from the path?

I’m wondering about the rigidity of people’s beliefs when they encounter the truth about the nature of homosexuality and same-sex unions.

In the lead up to our ceremony, more and more people began to refer to it as our “wedding”. At the beginning, I was uncomfortable with the idea that we were going to “get married” – I preferred to mask reality behind the euphemism of making promises to one another. It felt good to be defiant in the face of the legal and religious opposition to our union. This awkward position between a so-called lifestyle choice that is too often linked with promiscuity, and a social convention of mandated coupledom was certainly a queer position for us to take.

I grew to accept that what we were doing was the same as what other couples choose to do – to seal our bond by openly and publicly stating our intentions to nurture one another within a life long partnership. I also grew much more comfortable with the idea that we were getting married, and I felt excited that we were having a wedding to ceremoniously celebrate this deed.

Although I had felt a little unhappy that “my” guest list was so much shorter than my beloved’s and that the distance most would need to travel precluded their attendance, the irresistible urge to be part of our wedding drew people from my circle into our lives with an ever strengthening undertow, the closer we came to January 17, 2009. It was so affirming for me that so many of my invited friends and family members made the effort to attend. I felt surrounded by their well wishes, love and support.

I’m wondering why someone who refused to make a square for our chuppah, and refused to give an rsvp to our promise making ceremony, on the basis that she believed that what we are doing is against god, might still choose to attend.

My beloved and I are the kind of serious people who practise liturgy often in our daily lives. We took a long time and expended a lot of energy in writing our promises, and in working out the logistics and specifics of our ceremony. This was important to us.

We wanted, for example, to welcome everyone who came to be part of our day. We specifically wanted to rejoice in what we were choosing whilst affirming the choices that others have made and the places they find themselves in that are different from ours. We have both spent large portions of our adult lives as single people. We know that this can often feel like a contested and defensive position. We know that people move in and out of partnerships and likewise feel ousted from the norm because of these circumstances. We know both first and second-hand how it feels to live under siege because we are in a minority. In a world where we as a lesbian couple are not always welcome and free, we wished to extend an open-handed welcome to others.

We had worked from the assumption that those who had chosen to be present had their reasons for their presence. Equally, we reasoned that people who chose not to attend had reasons for their non-participation.

It never occurred to me that people might choose to attend and stand in open judgment as witness to what they label as being “against God”. I can only ask what they hoped to achieve in so doing. Was their God paying attention at the time? Did they receive extra Brownie points in their favour? Or was it their intent to cause harm to the people who had invited them to be part of our special day?

I wonder whether they can understand that the fact they were invited points to the value we place on our relationship with them; the esteem in which we hold them; and our hope that this may be reciprocated. Certainly from my side, I chose not to invite people who have attacked me in the past, just because they happen to be family members.

I’m wondering about the motivations of someone who would place responsibility for attending our ceremony on those who invited her, rather than being accountable for her own uncomfortable feelings. If we hadn’t wanted her to attend, than surely we would not have issued an invitation?

I get, that it’s not pleasant to be the bearer of unwelcome news. I get the moral courage that it takes to stand against something that seems to be receiving overwhelming support from all other quarters. This ought to be obvious to anyone who changes his or her vantage point from that of rigidly religious righteousness to that of renegade.

It is my contention that people who fail to act upon that moral courage, as we did, for example, in celebrating our union and inviting our friends and family to be part of the occasion, can’t really claim to possess that moral courage.

It pisses me off that the rigid religious fail to acknowledge the effects of their actions and beliefs upon those they judge. They either fail to recognise that their choices are hurtful, or act in full knowledge that their actions will cause pain and distress. They fail utterly to stand in the shoes of someone else, and are incapable of contemplating how hard it is for others to stand up and be counted in the face of their implacable hatred and homophobia. This seems blatantly hypocritical and prideful, when the message they speak from the other side of their mouths is a message of love and acceptance.

The commonalities between our two positions are clear to me. Both of us feel we must defend our positions in the face of hostile or indifferent opposition. Both of us feel that it is only by digging in our heels and refusing to bend that we are being true to what we believe about ourselves. The difference lies in whether we choose to interact with and embrace our antagonist, or whether we hold ourselves separate and aloof in disapproving judgment.

I never imagined someone might offer to turn her back at any portion of the ceremony that she could not bring herself to affirm. Such rigid judgmentalism had no place in my thinking about our day.

I’m wondering why someone would explicitly choose his view of morality over his relationship with a person he had known all of his life.

On the one hand the stance this person chose shows integrity of the upright, courageous kind.

Never mind the fact that as the unknown member of this couple, I was automatically placed under suspicion and judged to be of dubious character and reputation before I had even met any of these people – I am used to being cast in that role. Yes, it hurts. And no – I felt no compunction to overdo my niceness and prove them wrong. I was quite willing to crawl into my shell and give nothing away.
I wonder how much it cost him, to make this stand, and to hammer in this point of contention, dismantling with hard intent, every point of connection that had previously existed between him and my dearly beloved?

I think this was perhaps the easier moral position to take. Facing the situation openly and honestly would have taken a different kind of courage, and would have been less destructive. He was not even willing to test the waters and seeing whether indeed any connection of value remained between them.

There was no specific place in our ceremony, where we demanded that those present affirm our relationship. We never asked for anyone who disapproved to make his or her disapproval known. Ours was a rewriting, a reframing and a refashioning of a traditional wedding ceremony. As women standing openly and proudly outside the laws of our religions and our country, we felt no compunction and little desire to adhere to traditions and forms that hold no meaning for us. We chose to develop a ceremony whose every facet would hold meaning for us.

I’m wondering whether any of them got it at all on the day, at the park, amongst the crowds of rejoicers.

South Australian Teachers' Struggles

South Australian Teachers' Struggles
(c) Melina Magdalena (2008)

Comment posted to AdelaideNow (22/11/08)

After putting in a full day's work at my school (and despite the lack of students, there is ALWAYS plenty to be done at school), I was at the 4pm rally on the steps of Parliament House last night, together with hundreds of other angry teachers and school staff.

We were there to express our utter indignation and outrage at the State Government's bullying, strong arm tactics.

Rann, Caica, Foley, Lomax-Smith - these are the "culprits" responsible for yesterday's chaos and empty classrooms. Their behaviour is unconscionable. While the
Australian Education Union attempts to use the legitimate processes of lobbying and negotiation, the State Government of South Australia refuses to engage. The government's stubborn, arrogant refusal to meet the AEU and show some respect for South Australia's Public School Sector produced yesterday's chaos.

As well as refusing to negotiate, the State Government has lied, reneged on agreements and proposals and now removed our right to protest at their high-handed behaviour.

I love my job, and I love what I do. I won't compromise my professionalism by allowing this process to impede my work. But I will go to the steps of Parliament House in my own time for as long as it takes for Rann, Caica, Foley, Lomax-Smith to be stood down from office and face the discordant music of the havoc they have chosen to wreak upon South Australian families. I am ashamed to have voted Labor with the thought that Labor would be good for public education.

South Australia's politicians are the highest paid state government politicians in the nation.

South Australia's teachers are the lowest paid teachers in the nation.

Melina Magdalena