So it is now all OK to be gay?

Julian Punch MR

Mr Punch challenged Mr Croome and Mr Power to move away from their narrow consultative base and get involved with ordinary gay and lesbian people in the COPP Community Liaison Committees in the four regions and listen to people of courage talking about their desperate situation. Denying the problem will not find the innovative solutions that we need to establish at local and regional level Mr Punch said.
Press Release Coming Out Proud Program (COPP)
‘So it is now all OK to be Gay!’

State Coordinator of the Coming Out Proud Program State Steering Committee Julian Punch denied the comments of Rodney Croome from the Tasmanian Gay & Lesbian Rights Group and Mr Power of the same –sex partner lobby group in relation to the return of Penguin gay entrepreneur Steven Roach to the mainland indicated any rift in the gay community.

Mr Punch explained that the strength of the Coming Out Proud Program was in the large regional and local consultative base of the Community Liaison Committees now established in Tasmania in partnership with local government. Councils around Tasmania Mr Punch added ‘support four regional Community Liaison Committees, for the very reason of enabling gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex people in their localities and regions to live in their community with dignity, as fully-respected and participating members’. It is a direct response by local people responding to their experience of homophobic discrimination and violence within their local communities, also as a frustrated response to Gay leaders not listening to their own community members.

‘While I can understand gay entrepreneurs wanting to protect their investment base of a tranquil inclusive local community, acknowledging, respecting and celebrating diversity, this should not misrepresent the reality of considerable violence and discrimination in our communities against gay and lesbian people’, Mr Punch added. ‘It is reprehensible of Mr Croome and Mr Power as leaders to deny this experience of our community when the State Government is considering it’s responsibility to establish programs that develop respect and celebration of diversity as important principles and protocols for local and regional economic development’, Mr Punch said. The Government should not take Mr Croome and Mr Power’s comments as an excuse to now not address lack of respect and homophobia in our community. ‘For some it is OK for many it is not OK’, Mr Punch said.

Mr Punch praised the Cradle Coast Authority, (an economic development unit) which recently endorsed the Coming Out Proud Program and appointed a Liaison officer to its Community Liaison Committee, engaging nine councils on the North West/West Coast. The Authority was encouraged to do this by the homophobic furore that followed the business-planning proposition by Stephen Roach at Penguin and as well establish a sound basis for economic development based on social inclusion.

It is very wrong of Mr Croome and Mr Powers to indicate that everything is now fine for ‘gay’ people across the State, Mr Punch said. This denies the intense suffering of many people and especially the increasing suicide rate coming from rejection of ones sexual preference in Tasmania. Mr Croome and Mr Power seem not to be listening to people that I know have reviewed their desperate situation with them. The people that have lost their employment, the people that are bullied at work, the people that suffer intense depression and mental health problems from being rejected as gay, the people that are frightened to establish or register loving relationships because they are frightened of a hostile and rejecting community response – let alone suicide because they are same – sex attracted and bullied beyond any sense of hope for a normal happy life.

Mr Punch challenged Mr Croome and Mr Power to move away from their narrow consultative base and get involved with ordinary gay and lesbian people in the COPP Community Liaison Committees in the four regions and listen to people of courage talking about their desperate situation. Denying the problem will not find the innovative solutions that we need to establish at local and regional level Mr Punch said.

Mr Punch said that ‘far from stereotyping, his comments and initial press release were full of praise for the courage of local councils, unions, professionals and courageous gay and lesbian people in partnership addressing and finding solutions to making our communities safer and happier places based on respect and the celebration of diversity.

Julian Punch AM is State Coordinator of the Coming Out Proud Program.

The next meeting of the Huon/Kingborough Community Liaison Committee will hear from gay peoples experience of violence and work with local police to establish improved safety protocols – 22 April 6.30 Kingston Council Chambers.

Check out the website for details, plus links to services and organisations across Tasmania: www.comingoutproud.org