Threatened by gays

For example, even today in our apparently post-gay world, public displays of gay affection are not safe. If Mr Abbott wants to know what feeling threatened is like, then he should try walking around town holding his boyfriend's hand. Straight men holding their girlfriend's hands in public probably do not feel uncomfortable, threatened, and afraid of the menacing stares and the potential for verbal and sometimes physical abuse. Such discrimination may be diminishing in our society but it is by no means gone.

Notably, gay hate crimes increase during the Sydney Mardi Gras rather than decrease as one might hope. This is, of course, something you might not realise, being blindsided as we all are by the banality of the annual celebration, but it gives good reason for gays to be threatened of straight men and not the other way round.

But all that said, I quite liked Mr Abbott's honesty in saying he feels threatened by homosexuals. It is helpful to be reminded that people do feel threatened when confronted with what they see as a challenge to the orthodoxy of things - whether right or wrong. And such feelings, whether rational or not, are best kept out of the closet and deserve their time in the sun.

Yet, like the spider, while gays might sometimes have a vicious and venomous bite, it is the gays whom certain others wish to eradicate; whom certain others wish would remain out of sight and out of mind. And it is the gays who risk a straight man's shoe being planted firmly in their faces.

Gays may challenge the status quo but they do not challenge it so much as Mr Abbott might have us believe. As far as we know, gays have existed for as long as other humans. They are not new.

If the orthodoxy is challenged by gays then the orthodoxy was never based in reality. Gays do not challenge the orthodoxy so much as misdirected and unspoken fears might. Mr Abbott maybe threatened by gays but gays are threatened by him too.