STUFF WOT I HAVE BEEN READING

[highlyeccentric]

For most people, homosexual rights seems a minor issue, a distraction from bigger concerns such as global warming and world poverty. But rights are not divisible, and our commitment to them is most tested in the case of people who are marginalised and oppressed.

Here: an opinion piece in the SMH from earlier this week, on global homophobic violence, signs of support for anti-homophobic initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region, and the disturbing fact that Amnesty is the only non-gay group in Australia showing any signs of concern.

While we're at it, twice this week I opened up the SMH to find news articles on gay-bashings, and I heard that someone - a gay guy whom I've never met who works in my department - was bashed in Civic on his birthday.

This is worrying.

So is the fact that, while tagging along with my boss and two other reps from my department at the re-opening of the Jabal Centre at ANU (their Indigenous students' centre - we got an invite because of a research grant the department has funded in a relevant area of Indigenous history), I heard two different people casually mention the fact that the Klu Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups are committing serious racist violence in and around Alice Springs, Darwin, and remote WA and Queensland. One gentleman told my colleague that his nephew was recently murdered in the Todd River (actually in it, it's got no water).