Backwards to a Foreword

I started these writings with the intent of making mostly comedic style social observations. But opinions are like arseholes- everyone's got one- and as if often the way- the original intent is not what has eventuated, as the darker side of my mind has been very much in control lately.

All my writings are essentially a point of view or recollections of lived experiences. As with witness statements, which are not admissible as evidence in court due to the high rate of inaccuracy- sometimes what I feel, think or remember won't be the same as other people who may have been present for the same events.

They are my thoughts, feelings and memories, and may not necessarily represent those of people represented in them.

Thursday, 21 February 2013

Gay Hate: When Mental Health Problems are Not an Acceptable Defence

I sympathise and empathise with many people who have had mental health issues in their lives. I understand how hard it can sometimes be to cope with daily life, and that on occasion some reactionary behaviours such as pushing away people who try and help you, unexplainable moods and outbursts of crying or anger may occur.

Unless a person is suffering hallucinations or paranoid delusions, however, I cannot see a situation whereby targeting another person for simply living their life, bullying, harassing and starting a hate page about them, would be justifiable. 

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/army-did-nothing-to-stop-gay-hate/story-fncz7kyc-1226577414391

Given that the perpetrator was a member of the Army, it is likely that his PTSD was a incurred during a battle incident on deployment to a conflict zone, and symptoms should be associated with being attacked with a gun or being bombed. Even in the unlikely circumstances that the perpetrator in this case had been assaulted by another man at some point in his life in what he may have perceived as a "gay" attack, which his PTSD was attributable to- to go so far as to start a facebook hate page against homosexuality is despicable. 

People with mental illnesses are not incapable of applying moral standards to life, conducting business (it would appear he was well enough to still be in the workplace), and determining what is or isn't reasonable behaviour. For the courts to excuse death threats on the tenuously linked basis that the perpetrator was mentally unwell is almost an endorsement that displaying hatred towards someone because of their sexual orientation is an understandable or justifiable behaviour. 

Poor call by those who made this determination. Qui tacet consentit.

One who condones evil is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it.
-Martin Luther King


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