Following the recent news that the Anti-Defamation Commission has included concerns about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues to its purview, ADC Chairman Anton Block is going to be talking on Melbourne’s gay and lesbian radio station JOY 94.9 about the news.
It’s rewarding to see such a high-profile member of Melbourne’s Jewish community, the previous president of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria and former board member of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, beginning a conversation with the GLBT community. I hope this is the first of many such conversations, from which increasingly positive outcomes will arise for the welfare of GLBT people in the Jewish community.
Tune in to Doug Pollard’s “Rainbow Report” from 12 noon to 1pm Friday July 1, 2011 on JOY 94.9FM in Melbourne or on the live stream on www.joy.org.au. Participate in the discussion via SMS on 0427 JOY 949 (0427 569 949), by email to onair@joy.org.au or by Twitter to @rainbowreporter.
Find the link to the show here.
We listened to the Doug Pollard interview with Anton Block. For someone who is involved in the legal fraternity and Jewish community organisations he was not only fairly inarticulate, but seemed very hesitant to engage with the idea of glbti Jewish communities.
What came out of it all – and I am not sure why someone had to be there from the Institute of public affairs, renowned for their backward thinking on political and social issues – was that Anton Block, in his previous and present capacities with Jewish organisations, is not about to make any progressive statements which allow him and/or his organisations to engage with Jewish glbti people.
When these ADC and JCCV and Rabbinical people will climb down from their combined soap-boxes, meet glbti people, talk to them about their situations within Jewish communities and society in general, form consultative committees and show real interest in solving the Jews of Melbourne’s long-standing homophobia, then we know we will have started on the long climb out of this homophobic ditch which governments – federal, state and local – have dug for us to be thrown into as soon as the bigoted religios open their mouths and their bibles.
Anti-defamation would suggest just that, but we get defamed, attacked, abused and barely tolerated as human beings amongst a group – the Jews of the world – who should remember where defamation has been since Christ and the Catholics appeared on the scene and all started interpreting that man-made book of writings as the word of their god.
They forget that if their god created heterosexuals, he also created homosexuals.
We were, we are, we will be around for a few years to come, so get used to it!
Weird that Tim Wilson was there…? Not really, he is using Joy fm as a soap box and to build his media profile. That’s all.
The i.p.a are out there and have been for a while.