WORLDS COLLIDE

Gay politicians who support antigay policies rightly face accusations of hypocrisy. But why do they do it, and what’s the price they pay?

>> of ABCTV’s Q&A, Wong was challenged by an audience member who asked, “How can you sit back and allow yourself to remain silent about the obvious inequality you are kept in?”

Citing her efforts to be open about her sexuality throughout her political career, she highlighted the work she felt she had already done in helping improving party policies for LGBTIQ Australians, such as increased parental rights for same-sex couples. With regards to same-sex marriage, however, she went on to say; “I accept that you and some other people in the community would like us to have a different position… that isn’t the position of the party.”

Wong’s case invites debate about the effectiveness of “towing the party line” on such issues, with the longer-term goal of slowly winning over hearts and minds from within. Interestingly, on the same episode of Q&A, panel member and ex-Labor politician, Graham Richardson, alluded to this very approach during the debate:

“You would not have had many of the things that have now happened, if people like Penny weren’t in the Labor Party and weren’t pushing for them,” he revealed. “A lot of people in the Labor Party don’t agree with this stuff… There’s a thing called cabinet solidarity and if she wants to break it, she gets nowhere, and you lose someone who fights for your cause.”

For many, however, siding with short-term homophobic legislation for the sake of a long game remained a line in the sand.

The hope for “change from within” may have been a factor that lead openly gay Northern Irish politician, Alison Bennington to run for one of the most homophobic political parties in the UK.

In 2014, legislation passed that legalised same-sex marriage in the majority of the UK. However, while couples in England, Scotland and Wales were free to wed, those in Northern Ireland were not. Many political challenges had been mounted in an attempt to bring the region into line with the rest of the country, however, all were successfully blocked by the Democratic Unionist Party, the country’s leading political group.

The DUP have a well-established history of homophobia in Northern Ireland. The party’s founding leader, the Reverend Ian Paisley, led the high profile Save Ulster From Sodomy campaign in the 1970s.

In 2008, the wife of then-first minister and party leader Peter Robison said in a radio interview that homosexuality was “viler” than child abuse. And until marriage equality legislation was passed in 2019, the party continued to block every attempt made to introduce it in Northern Ireland using a “petition of concern”, a legal defence once designed to (ironically) safeguard minority rights.

The DUP’s reputation as a homophobic group is cemented in the consciousness of the local LGBT community so many were surprised when, in 2019, Bennington won a seat in local council elections. The win made her the party’s first openly gay candidate. Many local LGBT activists and groups welcomed her appointment, hopeful that it might signal the arrival of a new, more tolerant future for the DUP.

However, several of Bennington’s peers within her own party were quick to condemn her selection. Fellow DUP councillor John Finlay said party founder Reverend Paisley would be “turning in his grave” while local MLA Jim Wells confirmed that four members of the party had resigned as a result of Bennington’s election.

Northern Ireland’s gay community was ready to welcome a progressive new DUP, but the party itself was not.

There are myriad reasons why LGBT people may choose to side with anti-LGBT legislation or groups.

Some may make omissions about their sexuality to avoid risking their career. Some are simply towing the party line. Some may live in a country or community where it is not safe to be out and pro-LGBT. Others might be seeking to usher in a new, progressive age from within.

It would be wrong, of course, to assume anything about any one person’s mindset, priorities or reasoning. However, for those who work to advance LGBT rights, trying to understand why one might choose to side with a group working against our community can be hard to understand.

Psychiatrist Dr Matthew Lynch explained to DNA what factors might drive some LGBT people to suppress their own needs in these instances:

“Early childhood experiences, including parental factors (harsh parenting, forms of emotional abuse, rigid religiosity, bible bashing and strict moral codes… picture the father portrayed in the movie American Beauty) and broader extended family/community moral values pressure the individual to supress their sexual urges,” says Dr Lynch.

He points out that difficult childhood experiences can cause people to “throw themselves into other parts of their life like career, sport, academia or even politics” in later life. “Ian Thorpe and Ian Roberts, famous Australian sporting heroes, are classics examples.”

He goes on to say that, “Attachment studies (Ainsorth et al 1978, The Adult Attachment Interview) can predict future lifetime attachment behaviours and predict relationship patterns. These attachment models may show that closeted people in the public eye have lifelong difficulties with intimacy, trust and commitment phobia/fears.”

It’s important to recognise the emotional effects such a life of cognitive dissonance can have on individuals, especially those who are not open about their sexuality.

“The burden of being in the public eye would add additional layers of stress, stigma, discrimination, denialism and wealth protection,” says Dr Lynch. “A defended, closeted gay person who leads a double life, I predict, would be more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety, substance misuse and loneliness. These persons consciously put their career, money, fame and social privilege before freedom, love, spiritual fulfilment and intimacy.”

However, he also points out that, after long enough, one could become accustomed to this way of life, eventually becoming habituated to the mental stress of being both within the LGBT community, yet at the same time working against it.

“A contradictory or alternate view would include the innate ability of the human condition to adapt and habituate, creating a false self and traits of deceit and even more rarely psychopathic traits. The personality structure would predict the outcome for the individual, for instance, an extroverted goodlooking man may be more likely to abuse

A minority group can exhibit a phenomenon called ‘in-group derogation’… a tendency to judge people within their social group more harshly than those outside it.

In 2019, lesbian Alison Bennington ran for the most homophobic political party in the UK, the DUP, and won, prompting four party members to resign.

substances like alcohol and cannabis or other addictive behaviours including gambling.

“Biologically, the stress response in the human body is controlled by cortisol levels and involves the hypothalamic pituitary axis. One could imagine that the individual’s stress levels would adapt to the secret life.”

Research has also uncovered a psychological phenomenon that may help explain why some people act in a way that seems at odds with the needs of their own community.

Human beings are hard wired to view those who are members of their own social groups more favourably than those outside of it. We make unconscious distinctions and act in a way that is favourable to those who share our traits. A social group may be defined by sexuality, gender, ethnicity or even more arbitrary distinctions like what school we attended, the neighbourhood we live in or where we work.

This deep-rooted instinct helps us form bonds with others, build trust, and find a sense of meaning and co-operation within our communities; all of which would have been of massive evolutionary benefit to our ancestors.

However, limited research suggests that some people who identify as belonging to a minority group can exhibit a phenomenon called “in-group derogation”. In these studies, participants showed a tendency to judge people within their own social grouping more harshly than those outside it. While it has received little attention in terms of empirical scientific research, a phenomenon like this could help explain why some political figures might side with arguments or policies that are detrimental to their own communities, and even themselves.

This behaviour is often referred to within the LGBT community as “internalised homophobia”.

Many of us find this behaviour difficult to understand. After all, how can someone who has experienced systematic homophobia and oppression, willingly choose to bolster, rather than dismantle it? Feelings that “one of our own” is actively working against us, can stir up some intense emotions and incendiary debate. However, valid criticisms about an individual’s political work can stray into darker, uglier realms.

In January of this year, videos of protesters interrupting a Drag Queen Story-time event at a library in Brisbane, went viral. In the clips, the group, mainly made up of members from the University Of Queensland’s Liberal National Club, confront the performers and can be heard chanting, “Drag queens are not for kids”.

Public condemnation of the protest was swift. The story received international media attention, and The Liberal National Party were quick to distance themselves from the disruptive event.

However, events took a tragic turn when it came to light that in the early hours of the next morning, one of the key protesters,

Wilson Gavin, who was openly gay, had taken his own life.

Federal Liberal National Party MP, George Christensen immediately drew a link between the tragedy and the initial reaction to the protest on social media.

“Twitter is broken,” Christensen tweeted, before deactivating his Twitter account. “It’s for ad hominem attacks and pile-ons, not real discourse. And it’s aided and abetted by the media.” The Australian ran a range of hateful online comments, many expletive laden, made on Twitter towards Wilson.

Speaking to The Independent, cyberhate expert and author of bestselling book Troll Hunting, Ginger Gorman, said that despite the fact that the ambush of the children’s event was “horrifying”, “the social media response to this video was vile. You can’t solve hatred with hatred… Where was the acceptance of others in this terrible story? Where was our consideration of each other’s humanity?”

Unfortunately, the level of digital vitriol in this tragedy has become increasingly normalised. Cancel-culture and public shaming are often seen as “par for the course” online. Journalist and documentarian Jon Ronson’s TED talk, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed has over 2.5 million views and is filled with examples of those who have felt the full wrath of the internet.

Wilson Gavin once even spoke of his own struggles with online abuse in a video, stating: “As a conservative you’re subjected to an unending barrage of vitriol, hatred and the nastiest comments imaginable.”

How, then, should we engage with figures in a way that addresses our frustrations and concerns about anti-LGBT politics, but which is also constructive, compassionate and respectful?

In her 2017 TED talk, I Grew Up In The Westboro Baptist Church. Here’s Why I Left, Megan Phelps-Roper explains how it was conversations with strangers on Twitter that were the key to her new perspective on the gay community.

“Initially, the people I encountered on the platform were just as hostile as I expected. They were the digital version of the screaming hordes I’d been seeing at protests since I was a kid.” However, it was those who entered into a respectful-yet-persistent discourse with her that really made her question the root of her beliefs and, ultimately, change her stance on gay rights.

Figures like Aaron Schock who choose to side with anti-LGBT policies or parties can be frustrating. Indeed, his own apparent lack of an apology over supporting anti-gay policy has offended many in the LGBT community, and we would be remiss to overlook the damage his support has done.

However, if recent times have revealed anything, it’s that straying into personal attacks or harnessing the “power of the pile-on” rarely works. In fact, it can often have extremely damaging and devastating consequences.

Nobody should be encouraged to turn a blind eye to injustice or homophobia. As LGBT people, we feel the pain of it every day. However, when it comes to our ongoing fight for acceptance, it’s important to understand that righteous anger and compassion are not mutually exclusive. And if we are to continue to build a better world for our own community, we are going to need to harness both. •