Response to Miranda Devine’s Column on Penny Wong and London Riots

On Sunday, Miranda Devine wrote a column about Penny Wong’s partner announcing her pregnancy and linked it to the London riots. She suggested that a fatherless society is to blame for London burning, because a home without a father means there is no-one around to exert control over wayward children.

OH NO, what will happen to all the children of lesbian mothers? What city will they burn next?

As a gay woman I’m offended. Primarily by the argument that suggests that two women will not be able to raise a child as successfully as that of the nuclear family.

It can be a lengthy process for a gay couple to have a child and by the time they do, they’ve presumably got nothing but love and commitment to the cause, and surely, this is what family is about?
Unique situations, upbringings, and hard knocks, create dynamic, beautiful people who, ideally, enrich the lives of those around them.

And as for the riots, well aside from the thugs, there are some political and parenting lessons to be learned from London.

When a child has no hope, lives in a dire situation where there is no chance for them to succeed, in any sense of the word, when the parents let them down, the school and/or the system lets them down, then London burns.

London doesn’t (and didn’t) burn because their mother’s are lesbians.

It’s also a broad and ignorant statement to suggest that fatherless means the woman is to blame or that lesbian mothers are to blame. In actual fact, Miranda, fatherless is when the father isn’t committed physically, emotionally or financially to the child. When the father isn’t there for them. So why bother writing it, Devine? Yes, your bigotry creates controversy, it gets you more readers, it generates more traffic to your website which for you, is just a job, but for me; equality is something I fight for daily and these are important semantics.

Amongst a lot of other mess, you managed to ask what the big deal about a lesbian politician and her partner getting pregnant is, which too offends me. It also highlights your lack of understanding toward the issues gay people face. No wonder Penny Wong doesn’t publicly push for gay rights when people with power speak such diatribe as you.

Miranda, essentially your column speaks to bigots and nurtures hate in our society.

But you write what you will and I’ll write what I will. I’d just like you to know that for me, being gay means essentially I’m still considered a second-class citizen in this country. A country I was born in, that is my home. This same homeland denies me the same rights as my younger sister, as my best friends from high-school, as my work colleagues. Apparently when I crushed on a chick who took me horse-riding when I was eleven, I signed up to the fight for equality.

Miranda Devine I am offended by your lack of compassion and basic understanding for the human condition –the condition of one of your friends and maybe in the future, one of your children.

Anyway, I’ve heard that it’s better to ignore columns like yours.

It’s like fighting with a brick wall, no matter how valid your points are, the wall will never hear you’ll perpetually be fighting for a lost cause.

This is probably how the majority of the youth in London felt recently, when no-one heard their argument – especially their absent fathers… oh, and Penny Wong!?!