Young Howards
In some ways, the condemnation of same-sex couples adopting children by the Young Liberals at their national conference is a bit surprising. In other ways, it's not. Some may be shocked to learn that some of my best friends are...yup...Liberal. In fact one of my closest long-term friends is a Liberal homo, which by definition would seem like a paradox that would cause implosions trying to resolve, but this friend is my reminder that not all Libs are inherently evil...Just the Howard supporters (he's a Costello man, you see).And this is why the motion is no big surprise. It was put forward by the newly-elected national President who is from the NSW branch. My understanding of Young Lib politics (and trust me, it's very minimal, I generally avoid them like herpes if I can) is that the NSW YL branch was always the more progressive branch - a John Brogden fan club - but has recently been infiltrated and re-zoned by (Rancid Religious Right) RRR babies, under the guidance of new rabid hatemonger in the NSW Legislative Council, David Clarke.
If we go by the amendment Victorian delegate Amy Keenan-Dunn tried to move to condemn single parents - for her it's "far more harmful for a child to grow up with a single parent than it is to grow up with homosexual parents" (which is crap - both can be fine models of family, often a lot healthier than two hetero parents who no longer love each other but who stay together for the sake of their kids) - then it looks like Victoria is a cross somewhere between SA and NSW. PS - Don't you just love how YL kids always have those hyphenated surnames? The pretentious old-money traditions of keeping the names of both upstanding families will always be maintained so long as the YL continue to caucus, it seems.
Regardless, since this was a motion carried at a national conference, it would appear the same thing is happening in young politics as with grown-up politics: it's Howard's Way or the highway, with the few remaining Lib moderates squeezed out of caucus contention. It all makes for a rather bleak future. This idea that antiquated prejudice and ignorance dies out with the older pre-baby boomer generations can be readily dismissed when we see these kiddies demonstrating the same fear and hatred as their dads and granddads. The only difference is that they should know better.
25/1/05
posted by Sam @ Wednesday, January 26, 2005
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