Somehow June has become Pride Month. The Libertarian Party is in favour of community events, festivals and celebrations, but western civilisation's most ancient and celebrated festival Christmas is over and out in a week. A month for Pride is way too excessive. It is not just Pride Month, or Mardi Gras in February and March. There is Transgender Day of Visibility in March. There is the International Day Against LGBTQIA+ Discrimination in May, Non-Binary People's Day in July and Wear it Purple Day in August. October is busy with Pronouns Day, Asexual Awareness Week and Intersex Awareness Day. But do not forget November with Intersex Solidarity Day, Transgender Awareness Week and the Transgender Day of Remembrance. The Canadian Government has recently announced that June to September—four months—is Pride Season. I have no doubt that is on its way down under.
The rainbow calendar is now similar to a religion without a god, having all these feast days and holy days that everyone has to acknowledge or be shunned for heresy. My party was the first political party in Australia to support legalising same-sex marriage; it was in our founding document in 2000. In 2017 a majority of Australians agreed in a plebiscite to change the law. At that time, figures like Cory Bernardi and Lyle Shelton were demonised for warning that same-sex marriage would be a slippery slope; I did not believe them. Seven years later we must face the reality that Bernardi and Shelton have been proven utterly correct.
In the years prior to same-sex marriage, a privately and publicly well-funded activist movement ran a campaign to bring about this change to the law and then they won. The activists then had a conundrum: How could they keep all the high salaries flowing? Easy—invent new rainbow causes that are so important that the taxpayer has to fund them. When lobby groups fight for a cause and win, they do not just pack up their lobbying tents and go home. Too often they simply find new and more radical causes within the same framework. Lobbyists that rely on government grants do not simply pat themselves on the back after winning their cause; they get addicted to the gravy train.
Just as bad as the slippery slope of legislation is the slippery slope of government funding. When campaigns for equal rights are won, they too often evolve into never-ending campaigns for special privileges. When Tony Abbott ceased funding for the Climate Commission there was so much outrage that within a few days private donations exceeded the previous government funding. That is how it should be. My party advocates for a radical reduction in taxation and government power. When we have radically cut taxes and the government is put back in its box, the people will have far more money in their pocket and they can decide what causes they want to donate to.
ACON started in 1985 as the Aids Council of NSW when AIDS was an epidemic. In 2016 the ABC declared "the end of AIDS as a public health issue" and that "Australia has successfully beaten the epidemic." That is great news, but for some in ACON it was bittersweet. What was their purpose now? How could they keep the public money flowing? I encourage people to read a website called ACON Exposed. ACON's website states that one of its objectives today is to "advocate for the meaningful inclusion, support and participation of our communities and the reduction of discrimination and stigma". That all sounds good but why should the taxpayer fund it? The same should apply to all similar groups.
The New South Wales government spends a mere $400,000 every year on the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras; it could be easily self-funded. ACON is receiving $14 million a year. It is hard to count but, on my reckoning, there are at least another 22 government funding programs specifically targeted at rainbow groups. This is not about equal rights, equal opportunity or even equality of outcome; this is about lining the pockets of activist groups. If businesses, individuals and community groups want to celebrate Pride Month and everything else, I wish them all the best—when it is self-funded. But my hunch is that without the public funding and without so many paid activists, the free market will soon settle on far fewer rainbow neo-holy days.