We have to be better than them, it may not be fair but it is what it is.

We who are LGBTQIA+ are often on the end of some people trying to make a point. They make that point by othering us, by demonising us, essentially be depersonalising and negating our humanity.

But, as we all know we are of course, complete and wonderful human persons. Just as those that sling names and cast sharp pithy barbs at us. There is something to be said in critiquing these people, calling them out for the falsity, the wrongness, the bigotry and so forth, and this should definitely done.

Over the last week or so, there has been a bit of a frenzy building here in Australia. It concerns a famous Australian sportsperson, in fact the only person to hold more major titles than Serena Williams in womens Tennis. Margaret Court spoke out, she spoke out in a very public way. An open letter in one of the major weekend newspapers.

Her letter was to tell the Australian people that she was wherever possible, boycotting our iconic airline Qantas. Her reasoning was simple as it was bigoted. Alan Joyce’s public support for marriage equality in this country.

Margaret was, widely pilloried and critiqued. Calls were made for the renaming of a stadium at Melbourne Park, The Maragaret Court Arena, named, obviously, in her honour.

The outcry, as it is in this world of fast news cycles and internet publishing and of course tabloid TV. It was something of a pile on. And whilst her words must be resisted, must be critiqued, must be called out. The way we do so, I believe, must be better than how it is done to us.

Let us not become the very monsters that attack us.

Margaret then went on to do an interview with a prime time show called The Project. She came armed with minimal facts and lots of bigoted statements and spurious claims. She did not like being challenged on her stance and claimed she was now being bullied and persecuted for her Christian views.

https://youtu.be/0tYDysOus-4 – The Project Interview

As you would expect the internet kind of exploded at this point.

The unfortunate thing, for all of us that want to rightly critique and call out her bigotry is that, we do best when we do it in a way that doesn’t enable the bigot to claim victim status.

Margaret has done this, and to an extent she has become the victim. Instead of talking about the issues, we are all talking about Margaret and whether or not she was being fairly or unfairly treated.

To be clear, I don’t believe for a minute she is being badly treated in this matter. She has made horrendous claims, likening us to everything from Communism, Nazism through to ‘all the devil’. Not for a minute should we allow such bigotry to stand.

It’s clear for anyone who has thought for even a moment about privilege that Margaret’s claims of bullying and so forth are nothing more, when it comes down to it, than complaining one’s privilege has been called out, our been asked to be checked.

But here’s the thing, the bigots, those that want to continue to other us, to discredit us, to label us abominations, to dehumanise us, well, they hear her claims of bullying and persecution, they hear them and they rally around them and they scream about it loudly and suddenly, we the actual victims are forgotten and person saying the repulsive things about us become the victim, at least in many eyes of segments of the public.

We know she’s not a victim. We know she has multiple layers of privilege and we exist and eek out our living through multiple levels of intersectionality and lack of privilege. We know this. But that’s not the thing at stake here, it’s more about the fact that everyone has forgotten about the horrendous things she is saying and spreading and turned to worrying about how she is being treated, and whether or not a damn tennis stadium should be renamed.

So, I think, we have to be better than her. We have to respond to her words with reasoned and logical critique and dialogue. We don’t pile on her, we don’t give her any grounds whatsoever to claim any kind of bullying or persecution, regardless of how ridiculous the idea itself is.

What is more powerful, than piling on Margaret, is the contest of ideas, the calling out of her words. The reminding of the public of the ideas she professes, and in the case of Margaret, she has form of saying bigoted things over decades.

Let’s be better, let’s be more human, more reasonable, more inclusive, more everything that enhances and builds up the human condition and not what breaks it down, divides it and others it.

Another accomplished Australian Cate Macgreggor has spoken about this issue, and I think she makes some cogent and important points.

I encourage you to watch it here.

In the end it can be the easy option to yell and scream about these horrendously bigoted things, and there is a place for that at times too, but sometimes, we just have to be better than the bigots are.

This morning I watch this video